' 

. 


• 


ABQDK./KA1W  POEMS 


p 

*    I 


SUNFLOWERS 

A  Book  of  Kansas  Poems 


Illustrations 
by 

IVAN    SCHULF.R 


Printed  by 
THE  WORLD  COMPANY 

LAWRENCE,  KANSAS 
1914 


Kansas 

BY  THOMAS  EMMET  DEWEY 


Not  for  what  she  hath  done  for  me, 

Though  it  be  great, 
For  what  she  is,  her  majesty, 

I  love  my  State. 


This  Book  For  Sale 
by 

WILLARD  WATTLES 

LAWRENCE,  KANSAS 

Price,  One  Dollar,  in  Lawrence 

Ten  Cents  Extra  for  Postage 


Acknowledgements 


1  am  indebted  to  Nicholas  Vachel  Lindsay,  and 
to  Mitchell  Kennerley  of  New  York  City  for  per 
mission  to  use  Lindsay's  Kansas  from  The  Forum 
and  from  Adventures  While  Preaching  the  Gospel 
of  Beauty.  To  Smart  Set  for  Harry  Kemp's  Kan 
sas  and  London,  and  for  my  poem,  Manhood.  To 
Harper's  Weekly  for  my  Sunflowers. 

To  Mr.  A.  G.  Allerton  of  Hamlin,  Kansas,  I 
owe  permission  to  use  the  poems  of  Ellen  P.  Aller 
ton.  Mr.  Charles  H.  Manley  of  Junction  City, 
Kansas,  has  allowed  the  use  of  the  poems  of 
Amanda  T.  Jones,  all  four  of  which  originally  ap 
peared  in  the  Century  Magazine. 

I  use  Funston  by  James  J.  Montague  as  it  or 
iginally  appeared  in  the  New  York  American.  To 
C.  L.  Edson  I  am  indebted  for  sixteen  poems  from 
The  Kansas  City  Star  and  The  New  York  Even 
ing  Mail.  To  the  American  Magazine  for  Edson 's 
The  Promise  of  Bread.  My  own  Kansas  verse  has 
appeared  in  The  University  Kansan,  The  Graduate 
Magazine,  The  Journal-World,  The  Topeka  Cap 
ital,  and  The  Springfield  Republican. 

w.  w. 


PREFACE 

To  the  people  of  Kansas  I  dedicate  the  labor  of  five  years;  not 
mine  alone,  but  that  of  a  group  of  friends  who  have  equally  given  of 
their  time  to  this  little  volume.  At  first,  my  only  intention  was  to 
collect  the  lyric  verse  of  living  Kansas  writers;  but  as  the  conception 
grew,  it  seemed  possible  to  include  the  work  of  earlier  men  and  wo 
men  who  had  sensed  the  significance  of  our  state; — and  the  relatives 
of  those  early  authors  have  added  their  assistance  to  that  of  my  other 
friends. 

Yet,  in  no  way  is  this  collection  to  be  regarded  as  a  complete 
anthology  of  Kansas  verse.  My  earlier  intention  has  restricted  my 
choice  to  such  poems  as  seem  to  be  especially  interpretative  of  the 
state,  in  the  way  Miss  Esther  M.  Clark's  "Call  of  Kansas"  is  inter 
pretative.  I  have,  for  that  reason  omitted  some  of  our  finest  Kansas 
poetry,  such  as  Eugene  F.  Ware's  famous  "Washerwoman's  Song," 
for  others  of  his  poems  which  are  especially  local  in  their  appeal.  Be 
lieving  that  provincialism  is  as  much  of  an  essential  in  literature  as  it 
is  a  bane  in  morality,  I  have  chosen  those  poems  that  smack  unmis 
takably  of  our  Kansas  soil  and  are  close  to  the  grass-roots.  It  will 
be  the  task  of  some  other  laborer,  when  our  literature  shall  have 
been  more  completely  written,  to  garner  in  future  harvest-fields  the 
richest  of  our  grain. 

That  day  I  believe  will  come.  Much  more  has  already  been 
done  than  many  of  us  realize.  A  host  of  devoted  men  and  women, 
among  them  Richard  Realf,  Ellen  Allerton,  and  Amanda  T.  Jones, 
not  forgetting  that  New  England  champion  of  our  early  liberties, 
John  G.  Whittier,  has  already  set  the  name  of  Kansas  in  "song  and 
oratory."  I  need  not  mention  the  names  of  Paine,  Ingalls,  Mason, 
Ware,  White,  Howe,  Morgan,  Harger,  McCarter,  and  Carruth. 

Are  these  all  ?  There  is  even  now  a  younger  group,  and  among 
them,  Harry  Kemp,  Esther  M.  Clark,  Margaret  Lynn,  and  C.  L.  Ed- 
son,  now  of  the  New  York  Evening  Mail.  What  they  are  doing  is 
known  beyond  the  barb  wire  fences  of  our  state.  Another  Westerner, 
though  not  a  native,  has  interpreted  the  message  and  significance  of 
Kansas,  and  is  already  acknowledged  as  a  vital  minister  of  the  Gospel 
of  Beauty  and  Democracy.  To  Mr.  Nicholas  Vachel  Lindsay  are  due 
the  thanks  of  the  State  of  Kansas  as  well  as  the  thanks  of  America  for 
his  even  broader  service.  After  Walt  Whitman, — Harry  Kemp,  Lind- 


say,  and  Witter  Bynner,  may  be  looked  to  as  the  staunchest  servants  of 
an  Ideal  Commonwealth  among  the  poets  of  America.  It  has  been  my 
privilege  to  know  the  three  now  living,  and  through  John  Burroughs 
to  know  the  master  of  them  all.  Except  for  the  encouragement  of 
such  men,  and  of  William  Herbert  Carruth,  I  doubt  if  this  collection 
would  have  been  possible. 

To  three  friends  I  owe  a  special  debt.  In  1911,  Harry  Kemp 
was  one  of  a  group  of  six  at  the  University  of  Kansas  to  publish  a 
volume  called  "Songs  from  the  Hill."  At  that  time  in  our  pardon 
able  enthusiasm,  we  argued  that,  since  the  centers  of  American  litera- 
tur  had  moved  in  the  past  from  New  York  in  the  days 
of  Irving  and  Cooper  to  New  England  in  the  days  of  Hawthorne  and 
Emerson ;  thence  in  a  later  day  to  Indiana  and  Chicago ;  overlooking 
the  fact  that  California  has  developed  a  literature  of  her  own,  that 
the  next  logical  camping  place  of  the  muses  should  be  on  the  banks  of 
the  "Kaw,"  as  we  euphoniously  christen  our  muddy  Kansas  river. 
After  living  for  three  years  in  New  England,  I  am  not  so  certain  that 
we  were  entirely  wrong.  "If  that  be  treason,  make  the  most  of  it." 
Certainly,  I  shall  feel  that  this  little  book  is  in  some  way  the  fulfill 
ment  of  that  enthusiastic  vision  of  Harry  Kemp. 

Two  years  ago,  while  Kemp  was  at  Helmetta,  New  Jersey,  he 
wrote  at  my  request  a  poem  "Kansas"  which  I  print  in  this  volume  as 
the  feature  poem.  The  poem  is  already  known  to  the  state  through 
the  newspapers,  but  I  have  the  privilege  of  giving  it  the  first  perma 
nent  publication.  I  received  yesterday  from  New  York  the  following 
telegram  from  Kemp  in  regard  to  the  poem:  "Yes,  I  wrote  it  for 
you." 

Without  the  aid  of  Miss  Esther  M.  Clark  this  book  could  not 
have  been  prepared.  She  has  written  letters,  prepared  my  copy,  and 
read  my  proof.  I  cannot  sufficiently  thank  her.  I  can  do  it  best  in 
verse. 

To  Ivan  Shuler,  my  friend  and  schoolmate,  I  am  indebted  for  the 
drawings  on  which  he  spent  three  years  of  patient  labor.  He,  like 
myself,  was  reared  on  a  Kansas  farm ;  and  is  peculiarly  fitted  by  that 
inheritance  as  well  as  by  his  training  in  the  art  institutes  of  Chicago 
and  New  York,  to  interpret  the  spirit  of  Kansas.  It  is  my  highest 
hope  that  this  book  will  bring  him  the  recognition  he  deserves.  Julian 
Street  has  said  in  Collier's  Weekly  that  Kansas  has  little  or  no  origi 
nal  Kansas  art, — and  Julian  Street  is  more  or  less  right.  Julian 
Street  is  a  journalist  and  his  business  is  to  report  facts  as  he  finds 
them.  But  if  I  may  play  the  prophet  as  he  the  reporter,  I  would 


answer  all  critics  of  a  raw  and  crude  civilization  such  as  is  unquestion 
ably  ours  in  aesthetic  matters,  in  the  words  of  Harry  Kemp: 
"Let  other  countries  glory  in  their  Past, 
But  Kansas  glories  in  her  days  to  be-" 

But  now  to  the  people  of  Kansas  I  must  say,  "That  depends  on 
us," — on  every  Kansan  whose  duty  it  is  to  support  the  cultural  and 
educative  institutions  of  his  state,  to  bring  to  the  consideration  of  pub 
lic  questions  a  mind  unswayed  by  provincialism  or  fanaticism,  with 
the  simultaneous  obligation  of  not  forgetting,  when  that  culture  shall 
have  been  attained,  that  the  source  of  strength  and  beauty  alike  is  in 
the  soil  from  which  we  spring.  Whenever  a  culture  goes  to  seed  at 
the  top,  it  becomes  a  menace  to  society ;  and  if  the  choice  were  given 
me  of  seeing  in  Kansas  what  I  have  seen  of  culture  in  another  section 
of  America, — and  I  do  not  mean  New  England — ,1  should  shatter 
the  Decalogue  by  my  way  of  saying,  "Culture  be  hanged — give  me 
the  prairie-dogs." 

And  here  I  wish  to  explain  that  whatever  I  have  said  in  my  own 
verse  in  contrasting  the  East  with  the  West  is  not  leveled  at  the 
people  of  the  East ;  for  my  three  years  in  Amherst,  Massachusetts, 
were  three  of  the  happiest  and  most  valuable  of  rny  life.  In  many 
ways  the  East  is  kinder  than  the  West.  What  I  do  object  to  in  the 
East  is  the  mental  provincialism  of  her  people  which  is  as  marked  as 
the  aesthetic  provincialism  of  the  West — that  sort  of  attitude  on  the 
part  of  the  average  Easterner  which  makes  him  look  upon  the  Hudson 
river  as  the  western  boundary  of  the  habitable  globe.  Fortunately, 
that  attitude  is  even  now  changing  toward  a  broader  Americanism. 
There  is  none  of  us  who  need  not  be  reminded  that  "there  is  neither 
East  nor  West,"  and  that  men  are  not  citizens  of  Kansas  or  of  Man 
hattan  only,  but  citizens  of  America,  and  after  that  citizens  of  the 
world.  Not  in  one  generation  alone  has  the  query  risen,  "Can  any 
good  come  out  of  Nazareth?" 

This  book  goes  from  me  to  the  people  of  Kansas.  It  is  no  longer 
my  property.  There  is  on  it  no  copyright.  I  shall  feel  fortunate  if 
I  sell  enough  of  these  copies  to  pay  my  printer,  and  he  is  a  very  good 
printer,  an  editor  and  my  friend — Mr.  W.  C.  Simons  and  Mr.  J.  L. 
Brady,  for  there  are  two  of  "him."  They,  too,  have  made  this  col 
lection  possible,  because  they  believe  in  me  and  in  the  people  of  Kan 
sas.  These  are  your  poets  and  your  poems.  What  will  you  do  with 
them? 

WILLARD  WATTLES. 
Lawrence,  Kansas, 
October  1 8,  1914. 


The  Call  of  Kansas 

BY  ESTHER  M.  CLARK 


Surfeited  here  with  beauty,  and  the  sen 
suous-sweet  perfume, 

Borne  in  from  a  thousand  gardens  and 
orchards  of  orange-bloom ; 

Awed  by  the  silent  mountains,  stunned 
by  the  breakers'  roar, — 

The  restless  ocean  pounding  and  tugging 
away  at  the  shore, — 

I  lie  on  the  warm  sand-beach  and  hear, 
above  the  cry  of  the  sea, 

The  voice  of  the  prairie  calling, 

Calling  me. 


Sweeter  to  me  than   the  salt   sea  spray, 
the  fragrance  of  summer  rains ; 

Nearer  my  heart  than  these  mighty  hills 
are  the  windswept  Kansas  plains ; 

Dearer  the  sight  of  a  shy,  wild  rose,  by 
the  roadside's  dusty  way, 

Than  all   the   splendor   of   poppy-fields, 
ablaze  in  the  sun  of  May. 

Gay  as  the  bold  poinsettia  is,  and  the  bur 
den  of  pepper  trees, 

The  sunflower,    tawny    and    gold    and 
brown,  is  richer,  to  me,  than  these. 

And  rising  ever  above  the  song  of  the 
hoarse,  insistent  sea, 

The  voice  of  the  prairie  calling, 

Calling  me. 


Kansas,  beloved  Mother,     today    in     an 

alien  land, 
Yours   is  the   name   1   have   idly   traced 

with  a  bit  of  wood  in  the  sand, 
The  name  that,   flung  from  a  scornful 

lip,  will  make  the  hot  blood  start ; 
The  name  that  is  graven,  hard  and  deep, 

on  the  core  of  my  loyal  heart. 
O,  higher,  clearer  and  stronger  yet,  than 

the  boom  of  the  savage  sea, 
The  voice  of  the  prairie  calling, 

Calling  me. 


Kansas 

BY  HARRY  KEMP 


Let  other  countries  glory  in  their  Past, 
But  Kansas  glories  in  her  days  to  be, 
In  her  horizons  limitless  and  vast, 
Her  plains  that  storm  the  senses  like 

the  sea; 

She  has  no  ruins  grey  that  men  revere— 
Her  Time  is  "Now,"  Her  Heritage 

is  "Here." 


-Helmetta,  N.  J. 


Morning  in  Kansas 

BY  WALT  MASON. 


There  are  lands  beyond  the  ocean  which  are 
gray  beneath  their  years,  where  a  hundred  gen 
erations  learned  to  sow  and  reap  and  spin;  where 
the  sons  of  Shem  and  Japhet  wet  the  furrow  with 
their  tears — and  the  noontide  is  departed,  and  the 
night  is  closing  in. 

Long  ago  the  shadows  lengthened  in  the  lands 
across  the  sea,  and  the  dusk  is  now  enshrouding 
regions  nearer  home,  alas!  There  are  long  de 
serted  homesteads  in  this  country  of  the  free — but 
it's  morning  here  in  Kansas,  and  the  dew  is  on  the 
grass. 

It  is  morning  here  in  Kansas,  and  the  break 
fast  bell  is  rung!  We  are  not  yet  fairly  started 
on  the  work  we  mean  to  do;  we  have  all  day  be 
fore  us,  for  the  morning  is  but  young,  and  there's 
hope  in  every  zephyr,  and  the  skies  are  bright  and 
blue. 

It  is  morning  here  in  Kansas,  and  the  dew  is 
on  the  sod;  as  the  builders  of  an  empire  it  is  ours 
to  do  our  best;  with  our  hands  at  work  in  Kan 
sas,  and  our  faith  and  trust  in  God,  we  shall  not 
be  counted  idle  when  the  sun  sinks  in  the  West. 

10 


Three  States 

BY  EUGENE  F.  WARE. 


Of  all  the  states,  but  three  will  live  in  story; 
Old  Massachusetts  with  her  Plymouth  Rock, 
And  old  Virginia  with  her  noble  stock, 
And  Sunny  Kansas  with  her  woes  and  glory; 
These  three  will  live  in  song  and  oratory, 
While  all  the  others,  with  their  idle  claims, 
Will  onlv  be  remembered  as  mere  names. 


Kansas  and  London 

BY  HARRY  KEMP. 


Where  the  vast  and  cloudless  sky  was  broken  by  one 

crow 

I  sat  upon  a  hill — all  alone — long  ago,  *  *  '* 
But  I  never  felt  so  lonely  and  so  out  of  God's  way 
As  here,  where  I  brush  elbows  with  a  thousand 

every  day. 


11 


Each  in  His  Own  Tongue 

BY  WILLIAM  HERBERT  CARRUTH 

A  fire-mist  and  a  planet, 

A  crystal  and  a  cell, 
A  jelly-fish  and  a  saurian, 

And  caves  where  the  cave  men  dwell; 
Then  a  sense  of  law  and  beauty 

And  a  face  turned  from  the  clod, — 
Some  call  it  Evolution, 

And  others  call  it  God. 

A  haze  on  the  far  horizon, 

The  infinite,  tender  sky, 
The  ripe,  rich  tints  of  the  cornfields, 

And  the  wild  geese  sailing  high  ; 
And  all  over  upland  and  lowland, 

The  charm  of  the  golden-rod, — 
Some  of  us  call  it  Autumn, 
And  others  call  it  God. 


12 


Like  tides  on  a  crescent  sea-beach, 

When  the  moon  is  new  and  thin, 
Into  our  hearts  high  yearnings 

Come  welling  and  surging  in: 
Come  from  the  mystic  ocean 

Whose  rim  no  foot  has  trod, — 
Some  of  us  call  it  Longing, 

And  others  call  it  God. 

A  picket   frozen  on   duty, 

A  mother  starved  for  her  brood, 
Socrates   drinking   the   hemlock, 

And  Jesus  on  the  rood  ; 
And   millions   who,   humble   and   nameless, 

The   straight,   hard    pathway   plod, — 
Some   call   it    Consecration, 
And  others  call  it  God. 


13 


Opportunity 

BY  JOHN  J.  INGALLS. 

Master  of  human  destinies  am  I ! 

Fame,  love,  and  fortune  on  my  footsteps  wait. 
Cities  and  fields  I  walk;  I  penetrate 

Deserts  and  seas  remote,  and  passing  by 

Hovel  and  mart  and  palace,  soon  or  late 
I   knock  unbidden  once   at  every  gate! 

If   sleeping,   wake;   if   feasting,   rise   before 
I  turn  away.     It  is  the  hour  of  fate, 
And  they  who  follow  me  reach  every  state 

Mortals  desire,  and  conquer  every  foe 

Save  death ;  but  those  who  doubt  or  hesitate, 
Condemned  to  failure,  penury,  and  woe, 

Seek  me  in  vain  and  uselessly  implore ; 

I  answer  not,  and  I  return  no  more. 


14 


Ka  nsas 

BY  NICHOLAS  VACHEL  LINDSAY 


O,  I  have  walked  in  Kansas 
Through  many  a  harvest  field 
And  piled  the  sheaves  of  glory  there 
And  down  the  wild  rows  reeled: 

Each  sheaf  a  little  yellow  sun, 
A  heap  of  hot-rayed  gold ; 
Each  binder  like  Creation's  hand 
To  mould  suns,  as  of  old. 

Straight  overhead  the  orb  of  noon 
Beat  down  with  brimstone  breath; 
The  desert  wind  from  south  and  west 
Was  blistering  flame  and  death. 

Yet  it  was  gay  in  Kansas, 
A-fighting  that  strong  sun; 
And  I  and  many  a  fellow-tramp 
Defied  that  wind  and  won. 

And  we  felt  free  in  Kansas 
From  any  sort  of  fear, 
For  thirty  thousand  tramps  like  us 
There  harvest  every  year. 

15 


She  stretches  arms  for  them  to  come, 

She  roars  for  helpers  then, 

And  so  it  is  in  Kansas 

That  tramps,  one  month,  are  men. 

We  sang  in  burning  Kansas 
The  songs  of  Sabbath-school, 
The  "Day-Star"  flashing  in  the  East, 
The  "Vale  of  Eden"  cool. 

We  sang  in  splendid  Kansas 
"The  flag  that  set  us  free" — 
That  march  of  fifty  thousand  men 
With  Sherman  to  the  sea. 

We  feasted  high  in  Kansas 
And  had  much  milk  and  meat. 
The  tables  groaned  to  give  us  power 
Wherewith  to  save  the  wheat. 

Our  beds  were  sweet  alfalfa  hay 
Within  the  barn-loft  wide. 
The  loft-doors  opened  out  upon 
The  endless  wheat-field  tide. 


16 


I  loved  to  watch  the  wind-mills  spin 
And  watch  that  big  moon  rise. 

I   dreamed   and  dreamed  with  lids  half-shut, 
The  moonlight  in  my  eyes. 

For  all  men  dream  in  Kansas, 

By  noonday  and  by  night, 
By  sunrise  yellow,  red  and  wild, 

And  moonrise  wild  and  white. 

The  wind  would   drive   the   glittering  clouds, 
The  cottomvoods  would  croon, 

And  past  the  sheaves  and  through  the  leaves 
Came  whispers  from  the  moon. 


17 


When  the  Sunflowers 
Bloom 

BY  ALBERT  BIGELOW  PAINE. 


I've  been  off  on  a  journey;  I  jes'  got  home  today; 
I   traveled  east,   an'  north,   an'  south,    an'   every 

other  way; 

I  seen  a  heap  of  country,  an'  cities  on  the  boom, 
But  I  want  to  be  in  Kansas  when  the 
Sun- 
Flowers 

Bloom. 

You  may  talk  about  yer  lilies,  yer  vi'lets  and  yer 

roses, 
Yer  asters,   an'   yer  jassymins,   an'   all   the  other 

posies ; 
I'll  allow  they  all  air  beauties  an'  full  'er  sweet 

perfume, 

But  there's  none  of  them  a  patchin'  to  the 
Sun- 
Flowers 
Bloom. 


18 


Oh,  it's  nice  among  the  mount'ins,  but  I  sorter  felt 

shet  in; 
'T'ud  be  nice  upon  the  seashore  ef  it  wasn't  for  the 

din; 
While  the  prairies  air  so  quiet,  an'  there's  allers 

lots  o'  room, 

Oh,  it's  nicer  still  in  Kansas  when  the 
Sun- 
Flowers 
Bloom. 

When  all  the  sky  above  is  jest  ez  blue  ez  blue  kin  be, 
An'  the  prairies  air  a  wavin'  like  a  yaller  driftin' 

sea, 
Oh,  it's  there  my  soul  goes  sailin'  an'  my  heart  is 

on  the  boom 

In  the  golden  fields  of  Kansas  when  the 
Sun- 
Flowers 
Bloom. 


19 


It  Will  Be  a  Kansas  Year 

BY  J.  B.  EDSON. 


O,  the  Lord's  come  back  to  Kansas  and  will  start 

the  brooklets   flowing, 
Put  new  life  in  the  people,     keep     the    vegetation 

growing. 
So  just  keep   the   hoe   a-shining,   put   your   muscles 

into  gear, 
For  the  Lord's  come  back  to  Kansas  and  'twill  be 

a  Kansas  year. 

Yes,  the  Lord's  come  back  to  Kansas,  to  give  music 

to  the  birds; 
Sent  the  silver  dews  to  moisten  early  grazing  for 

the  herds; 
So  just  plant  and  keep  on  planting;  every  stalk  will 

bear  an  ear; 
For  the  Lord's  come  back  to  Kansas,  and  'twill  be 

a  Kansas  year. 

Yes,  the  Lord's  come  back  to  Kansas ;  'twill  put  blue 
stem  in  the  sod; 

And  the  humming  bird  will  flutter  midst  the  au 
tumn's  goldenrod; 


20 


So  get  out  the  scythe  and  whet  it,  haying  season's 

almost  here; 
For  the  Lord's  got  back  to  Kansas  and  'twill  be 

a  Kansas  year. 


Joy  In  the  Corn  Belt 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


The  seed  is  in  the  clover, 

The  ear  is  in  the  shuck, 
The  melons  shout,  "Come  out,  come  out, 

And  eat  this  garden-truck." 

The  yellow  ears  are  for  the  steers, 
The  white  are  for  the  swine; 

Their  hair  and  hides  and  bacon  sides 
Are  all  for  me  and  mine. 

The  cider  mug  is  by  its  jug, 

The  sweet  potatoes  fry; 
And  ma  is  shovin'  in  the  oven 

Pumpkin  custard  pie! 


21 


Walls  of  Corn 

BY  ELLEN  P.  ALLERTON. 

Smiling  and  beautiful,  heaven's  dome, 
Bends  softly  over  our  prairie  home. 

But  the  wide,  wide  lands  that  stretched  away 
Before  my  eyes  in  the  days  of  May, 

The  rolling  prairies'  billowy  swell, 
Breezy  upland  and  timbered  dell, 

Stately  mansion  and  hut  forlorn, 
All  are  hidden  by  walls  of  corn. 

All  wide  the  world  is  narrowed  down, 

To  the  walls  of  corn,  now  sere  and  brown. 

What  do  they  hold — these  walls  of  corn, 
Whose  banners  toss  on  the  breeze  of  morn? 

He  who  questions  may  soon  be  told ; 

A  great  state's  wealth  these  walls  enfold. 

No  sentinels  guard  these  walls  of  corn, 
Never  is  sounded  the  warder's  horn. 

Yet  the  pillars  are  hung  with  gleaming  gold, 
Left  all  unbarred,  though  thieves  are  bold. 

22 


Clothes  and  food  for  the  toiling  poor, 
Wealth  to  heap  at  the  rich  man's  door; 

Meat  for  the  healthy  and  balm  for  him 
Who  moans  and  tosses  in  chamber  dim; 

Shoes  for  the  barefooted,  pearls  to  twine 
In  the  scented  tresses  of  ladies  fine; 

Things  of  use  for  the  lowly  cot. 

Where  ( bless  the  corn ! )  want  cometh  not ; 

Luxuries  rare  for  the  mansion  grand, 
Gifts  of  a  rich  and  fertile  land; — 

All  these  things  and  so  many  more 

It  would  fill  a  book  to  name  them  o'er, 

Are  hid  and  held  in  these  walls  of  corn, 
Whose  banners  toss  in  the  breeze  of  morn. 

Open  the  atlas,  conned  by  rule, 

In  the  olden  days  of  the  district  school. 

Point  to  the  rich  and  bounteous  land, 

That  yields  such   fruit  to  the  toiler's  hand. 

"Treeless  desert,"  they  called  it  then, 
Haunted  by  beasts,  forsaken  by  men. 

Little  they  knew  what  wealth  untold, 

Lay  hid  where  the  desolate  prairies  rolled. 


23 


Who  would  have  dared,  with  brush  or  pen, 
As  this  land  is  now,  to  paint  it  then? 

And  how  would  the  wise  ones  have  laughed  in  scorn, 
Had  prophet  foretold  these  walls  of  corn, 
Whose  banners  toss  in  the  breeze  of  morn ! 


Ah!  Sunflower! 

BY  WILLIAM  BLAKE. 


Ah!  Sunflower,  weary  of  time, 

Who  countest  the  steps  of  the  sun, 
Seeking  after  that  sweet  golden  clime 

Where  the  traveler's  journey  is  done; 
Where  the  youth  pined  away  with  desire, 

And  the  pale  virgin  shrouded  in  snow, 
Arise    from  their  graves,  and  aspire 

Where  my  sunflower  wishes  to  go! 


24 


Winds  of  Delphic  Kansas 

BY  KATE  STEPHENS. 


Half-west,  half-east;  half-north,  half-south; 

— As  in  Grecian  Delphi  in  days  of  old, 

The  center  of  the  world  as  men  then  told — 

The  winds  blow  ever — and  through  a  god's  mouth. 

O,   the  snow-footed,     ice-armored    winds    of    the 
prairie, 

Rushing  out  mightily 
From  cosmic  caves  of  the  north, 
From  glacier  forces  of  earth  and  air, 

The  winter  winds  of  the  prairie! 
They  drive  dark  clouds  from  morn  to  morn, 
They  shake  the  light  o'er  stubbles  of  corn, 
They  whistle  through  woods  of  leaves  all  shorn, 
With  never  a  hint  of  the  spring  to  be  born, 

The  flesh-freezing  winds  of  the  prairie! 

Half-north,   half-south;  half-east,   half-west; 
The  airs  pour  ever;  the  winds  never  rest: 

O  the  sun-lifted,  cotton-soft  winds  of  the  prairie, 
Cheering  right  merrily 

25 


From  tillage  lands  of  the  south, 

From  warmth  of  breeding  southern  seas, 

The  June-sweet  winds  of  the  prairie ! 
They  drive  silver  clouds  all  day  to  its  close. 
And  shake  glowing  light  on  young  corn  in  rows, 
They  rock  the  trees  till  the  small  birds  drowse, 
They  swirl  the  fragrance  of  wild-grape  and  rose, 
The  seminal  winds  of  the  prairie: 

Half-south,  half-north:  half-west,  half -east: 
A  people  intoxicate:  and  winds  do  not  cease; 

O  the     free-state,     Puritan-spirited     winds  of  the 
prairie, 

Singing  right  heartily 

That  gods  were  but  folk  who  were  free, 
That  folk  who  are  free  are  as  gods, 

The  human-voiced    winds  of  the  prairie! 
They  call  Brown  of  bloody-blade  from  Osawato- 

mie, 

They  smite  swift  the  shackles — the  slave  is  free ; 
To  all  the  world  they  say  in  their  humanity 
'Come  here  and  build  a  home  loyal  to  me,' 

The  primal-souled  winds  of  the  prairie! 

Half-east,  half-west;  half-south,  half-north; 
All  forces  here  meet,    but  the    free    alone    are 
worth ; 

26 


O  the  self-reliant,  right-seeking  winds  of  the  prairie ! 
Blowing  out  lustily 

From  the  race-brood  of  New  England 

In  this  western  New  England, 
The  altruistic,  rainbow-future  winds  of  the  prairie! 
They  strive  ever  after  the  ideal — Better !  Better ! 
Till  today  they  sing  'Melior!  Brook  no  fetter! 
Of  freedom  the  spirit  seek  ye;  not  the  letter! 
Melior!  Melior!  Better!  Better' 

The  cloud-dispelling,  star-climbing  winds  of  the 


prairie 


So,  prophetic  in  zeal,  through  hot  winds  and  cold, 
— As  in  Grecian  Delphi  in  days  of  old, 
The  center  of  the  world  as  men  then  told — 
Half-west,  half-east;  half-north-  half-south — 
The  spirit  speaks  ever — and  through  a  god's  mouth. 


Le  Marais  du  Cygne 

BY  JOHN  G.  WHITTIER. 

A  blush  as  of  roses 

Where  rose  never  grew ! 
Great  drops  on  the  bunch-grass, 

But  not  of  the  dew! 
A  taint  in  the  sweet  air 

For  wild  bees  to  shun, 
A  stain  that  shall  never 

Bleach  out  in  the  sun! 

Back,  steed  of  the  prairies! 

Sweet  song-bird,  fly  back! 
Wheel  hither,  bald  vulture! 

Gray  wolf,  call  thy  pack! 
The  foul  human  vultures 

Have  feasted  and  fled; 
The  wolves  of  the  Border 

Have  crept  from  the  dead. 

In  the  homes  of  their  rearing, 
Yet  warm  with  their  lives, 

Ye  wait  the  dead  only, 

Poor  children  and  wives! 

Put  out  the  red  forge-fire, 

The  smith  shall  not  come; 

28 


Unyoke  the  brown  oxen, 

The  plowman  lies  dumb. 

Wind  slow  from  the  Swan's  Marsh, 

O  dreary  death-train, 
With  pressed  lips  as  bloodless 

As  lips  of  the  slain! 
Kiss  down  the  young  eyelids, 

Smooth  down  the  gray  hairs; 
Let  tears  quench  the  curses 

That  burn  through  your  prayers. 

From  the  hearths  of  their  cabins, 

The  fields  of  their  corn, 
Unwarned  and  unweaponed, 

The  victims  were  torn — 
By  the  whirlwind  of  murder 

Swooped  up  and  swept  on 
To  the  low,  reedy  fen-lands, 

The  Marsh  of  the  Swan. 

With  a  vain  plea  for  mercy 

No  stout  knee  was  crooked; 
In  the  mouths  of  the  rifles 

Right  manly  they  looked. 
How  pale  the  May  sunshine, 

Green  Marias  du  Cygne, 
When  the  death-smoke  blew  over 

Thy  lonely  ravine ! 

29 


Strong  man  of  the  prairies, 

Mourn  bitter  and  wild! 
Wail,  desolate  woman! 

Weep,  fatherless  child ! 
But  the  grain  of  God  springs  up 

From  ashes  beneath, 
And  the  crown  of  His  harvest 

Is  life  out  of  death. 

Not  in  vain  on  the  dial 

The  shade  moves  along 
To  point  the  great  contrasts 

Of  right  and  of  wrong: 
Free  prairie  and  flood, — 

And  fields  of  ripe  food; 
The  reeds  of  the  Swan's  Marsh 

Whose  bloom  is  of  blood. 

On  the  lintels  of  Kansas 

That  blood  shall  not  dry; 
Henceforth  the  Bad  Angel 

Shall  harmless  go  by; 
Henceforth  to  the  sunset 

Unchecked  on  her  way, 
Shall  Liberty  follow 

The  march  of  the  day. 


30 


The  Prairie  Pioneers 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 

He  builded  a  house  of  sod  on  the  slope  of  a  prairie 
knoll ; 

He  builded  in  praise  of  God,  content  with  the  scan 
ty  dole. 

He  had  builded  a  nest  in  the  grass,  as  the  ground- 
squirrels  burrow  low; 

And  hither  he  led  a  laughing  lass  in  the  days  of 

long  ago. 

He  was  a  lad  and  she  was  a  maid ; 
Their  hearts  were  glad ;  they  were  unafraid 
Of  the  world  and  its  waiting  woe. 

The  prairie  wind  in  her  face  tumbled  her  tresses 

down, 
The  sensitive  rose,  in  its  grace,  clung  to  her  cotton 

gown. 
The  prairie  dog  beat  a  retreat  and  watched  them 

mournful-eyed, 
And  the  buffalo  grass  beneath  her  feet  said:  "Woe 

to  the  prairie  bride!" 
He  was  a  husband  and  she  was  a  wife; 
A-foot  in  the  daisy  fields  of  life ; 
They  would  not  be  denied. 


31 


Who   did  the  law  ordain,  who  wrote  the  dread 

decree 
That  into  the  desert  plain  the    children    of  men 

should  flee? 

Into  a  treeless  land,  the  land  of  little  rain, 
Pressed    and    driven    by    penury's    hand,    shackled 
with  poverty's  chain; 

Youth  to  sicken  and  love  to  din, 

Beauty  blasted  and  hope  gone  dry, 
And  grief  in  a  maddened  brain. 


Ever  the  hot  wind     blew,     sapping  the  famished 

corn; 
The  night,  unblessed  by  dew,  fevered  the  breath 

of  morn. 
A  man  agape  at  the  skies  where  no  cloud  fleeces 

go; 

Weeping,  the  broken  woman  lies  in  the  dugout's 
furnace  glow. 

His  hope,  like  the  sod  corn,  curls  and  wilts; 

She  writhes  on  a  bed  of  cotton  quilts 
In  a  mother's  nameless  woe. 


32 


O,  wind,  you  are  hellish  hot ;  death  is  the  song  you 

sing; 
The  eggs  in  the  quail's  nest  rot  under  her  tortured 

wing. 

Dust  in  a  choking  cloud  wavers  and  sifts  and  flics; 
Dust  is  the  dead  babe's  pauper  shroud;  on  her  sick 
breast  it  lies. 

The  sod  corn  crumbles  and  blows  away, 

Chaff  in  the  clouds  of  smoking  clay, 
Surging  against  the  skies; 

He  builded  a  house  of  sod  on  the  slope  of  a  prairie 
knoll ; 

He   builded   in   praise  of   God,   content  with   the 
scanty  dole. 

He  had  builded  a  nest  in  the  grass,  as  the  ground- 
squirrels  burrow  low: 

And  hither  he  led  a  laughing  lass  in  the  days  of 

long  ago. 

He  was  a  lad  and  she  was  a  maid ; 
Their  hearts  were  glad;  they  were  unfraid 
Of  the  world  and  its  waiting  woe. 


33 


Ch  e  win  k 

BY  AMANDA  T.  JONES. 


Sing  me  another  solo,  sweet — 

I  have  learnt  this  one  by  rote; 
The  endless  merry-go-round  repeat 

Of  the  tuneful,  tender,  teasing  note: 
"Che-wink,    che-wink! 
Che-wink,  che-wink!" 
A  moment's  rest  for  the  tired  throat 
(Just  long  enough  for  a  heart  to  beat,) 
And  at  it  again:  "Che-wink,  che-wink." 

O  bird,  dear  bird  with  the  outspread  wings 

And  little  to  chant  about! — 
When  death  reaches  over  the  wreck  of  things 
To  stifle  the  soft,  delighted  shout: 
"Che-wink,  che-wink! 
Che-wink,  che-wink!" 
And,  all  unruffled  by  dread  or  doubt, 
Your  musical  mite  of  a  soul  upsprings, 
Will  you  still  go  crying:   "Che-wink,  che-wink?" 


34 


Little  I  know,  but  this  I  hold: 

If  the  rushing  stars  should  meet, — 
Their  crystal  spheres  into  chaos  rolled, — 
Let  only  this  one  pure  voice  entreat: 
"Che-wink,  che-wink! 
Che-wink,  che-wink!" 

Great  Love  would  answer  the  summons  sweet, 
And  a  universe  fresh  as  the  rose  unfold. 

So  at  it  again.     "Che-wink,  che-wink!" 


Spring  in  Kansas 

BY  KATE  STEPHENS. 

Make  glad,  make  glad, 

The  Lord  of  growth  has  come, 

The  sun  has  half  his  northward  journey  done, 

And  in  deep-buried  roots  moves  the  Spirit ! 

Upon  the  dark-earthed  field 

Fires  of  last  year's  husks  the  farmer  kindles — 

Sacrifices  to  the  Lord  of  growth ; 


35 


Smoke  rises  to  the  bluer  heavens, 

While  hawk  and  solemn  crow  cut  with  long  wing 

the  sparkling  air, 
And  little  birds  do  sing  'Rejoice! 
Rejoice!  the  springing  life  is  here!' 

For  the  sun,  O  brothers,  shines  upon  our  land ! 
And  winds,  O  sisters,  blow  over  all  our  land! 
Mounting  sap  now  brightens  trunk  and  tree  and 

vine, 
And  every  tip-most  twig  swells  out  its  leaf -buds: 

The  peach  puts  forth  her  bitter-tinted  pink, 
Red-bud  empurples  far  each  wooded  stretch. 
And,  by  the  magic  of  the  lord  of  spring, 
Stand  orchards,  very  ghosts  of  winter  snows,  white- 
cloaked   in   blossom. 

And  wheat,  O  sisters,  greens  in  our  rolling  glebe, 
And  corn,  O  brothers,  springs  from  its  golden  seed ! 

For  sun-warmth  and  wind-strength  and  praise- 
God  rain  are  abroad  in  our  land, 

Three  builders  of  worlds  with  the  Spirit  go  forth 
hand  in  hand. 

Make  glad,  make  glad. 
The  lord  of  growth  has  come, 
The  sun  has  near  his  northward  journey  run, 
And  in  deep-buried  roots  moves  Life  ever-living! 
36 


The  Prairie  Schooner 

BY  CHARLES  MOREAU  HARGER. 


Slow  was  the  weary,  toilsome  way 

Where  creaked  the  heavy  wain, — 
Quaint  follower  of  the  speeding  day 
Across  the  plain. 

White  canvas  covers,   bulging,   fair, 

Enclosed  fond  hearts  athrob  with  joy ; 
The   builders  of   an   empire  there 
Found  safe  convoy. 

Along  its  course  child-voices  sweet 

Marked  all  the  strangeness  of  each  scene; 
While   parents  sought   new   homes   to   greet 
With  vision  keen. 

No  luxury  or  ease  was  there 

To  lap  the  traveler  into  rest, 
But  staunch  it  bore  the  pioneer 

On  toward  the  West. 

Deserted  now,   its  ragged  sails 

Are  furled — the  port  has  long  been  won. 
Sport  of  the  boisterous,  hurrying  gales, 
Through  cloud  and  sun. 


37 


Unused,  forlorn,  and  gray,  it  stands, 

A  faded  wreck  cast  far  ashore, 
The  Mayflower  of  the  prairie  lands, 
Its  journey  o'er. 


Where  "A  Lovely  Time 
Was  Had" 

BY  WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE. 

Bill   Hucks,  the  item-chaser  on  the  Wilier  Creek 

Gayzette, 
Was  the  likeliestest  hustler  that  old  man  McCray 

could  get. 
As  a  writer-up  of     runaways,     an'     funerals,     an' 

shows, 
Bill  never  had  an  equal    nor     a    rival,    goodness 

knows 

So  we  sent  him  up  a  invite  to  a  doins  Susie  give, 
And  he  writ  a  piece  about  it  that  was  fine,  as  sure's 

you  live. 

But  all  I  kin  remember  is,  "We  hardly  need  to  add 
The  guests  agreed   at  leaving  that  a  lovely   time 

was  had." 

38 


O  yes, — now  come  to  think  of  it — her  maw  cook 
ed  up  some  cake 
And  pies  and  floatin  island  truck  that  Susie  helped 

to  make, 
And  they  was  pickle-lilly,  too,  and  beets  and  jell 

and  jam, 
And  slaw,  and  chicken-salad,  and  some  sanwiches 

of  ham. 
And  them  Bill  said  was  "viands,"  which,  in  writin'- 

up  he  owned, 
"Made  a  tempting  feast  of  good  things,  and  the 

table  fairly  groaned. 
And  when  the  wee  sma'  hours  were  come,  we  hardly 

need  to  add, 
The  guests  agreed  at  leaving  that  a  lovely  time 

was  had." 

Old  Bill  has  gone  from  Wilier  Crick:  the  Gayzctte 
is  no  more, 

For  Old  McCray  has  stole  away  to  find  the  Gold 
en  Shore. 

And  Susie  has  been  married  off  for  lo!  these  many 
years, 

And  some  of  them  that  come  that  night  have  quit 
this  vale  of  tears: 

But  maw  has  in  her  scrapbook — 'long  with  little 
Laury's  death, 

39 


And  the  pome  about  the  baby  and  the  accident  to 

Seth— 
The  piece  about  the  doins,  and  today  it  makes  us 

glad 
To  read  at  Susie's  party  "that  a  lovely  time  was 

had." 


Pawpaws  Ripe 

BY  SOL  MILLER. 


The  sunny  plains  of  Kansas  dozed 

In  soft  October  haze; 
The  wayside  leaves  and  grass  disclosed 

Scarce  signs  of  autumn  days. 
The  cornstalks  bent  their  ears  of  gold, 

To  list  the  cricket's  din ; 
And  fields  of  sprouting  wheat  foretold 

The  farmer's  laden  bin. 

Many  a  mover's  caravan 

Stretched  westward  far  away, 
As  they  had  moved,  since  spring  began, 

To  where  the  homesteads  lay. 
Their  wagon-sheets  were  snowy  white, 

Their  cattle  sleek  and  stout: 
Their  children's  merry  faces  bright, 

With  blooming  health  shone  out. 

40 


But  ho!  what  apparition  queer 

Is  this  that  looms  in  sight? 
Has  Rip  Van  Winkle  wandered  here 

Just  from  his  waking  plight? 
Has  one  of  the  Lost  Tribes  come  back 

With  remnant  of  his  band, 
And  eastward  turned  once  more  his  track, 

To  seek  the  Promised  Land? 

Beneath  yon  shade  I'll  sit  me  there, 

Upon  that  bank  of  grass, 
And  inventory,  as  it  were, 

These  nomads,   as  they  pass. 
There  may  be  reason  wise  and  strong, 

Unknown  to  us,  why  they, 
Of  all  the  steady,  moving  throng, 

Are  on  the  backward  way. 

A  wagon  of  past  ages,  built 

On  model  lost  to  art: 
A  dirty,   ragged,   faded   quilt 

Supplied   a   cover's   part. 
Wheels  of  four  sizes,  tireless  now, 

With  many  a  missing  spoke; 
A  three-legged  mule,  a  one-horned  cow, 

Tugged  slowly  in  the  yoke. 

41 


A  man  of  five-and-forty  years, 

With  beard  of  grizzled  brown; 
A  brimless  hat  sat  on  his  ears, 

His  hair  strayed  through  the  crown; 
His  pants  of  dingy  butternut, 

His  coat  of  tarnished  blue, 
His  feet  with  no  incumbrance  but 

Mismated  boot  and  shoe. 

Six  hungry  curs  of  low  degree 

Sneaked  at  their  master's  heels, 
Or,  underneath  the  axle-tree, 

Kept  measure  with   the  wheels. 
Packed  in  the  feeding-box  behind, 

A  time-worn  jug  is  spied, 
Whose  corn-cob  stopper  hints  the  kind 

Of  nourishment  inside. 

Nine  boys  and  girls  with  rheumy  eyes 

Stowed  in  with  beds  and  tins, 
Were  all  so  nearly  of  a  size, 

They  might  have  well  been  twins. 
The  mother,  as  a  penance  sore 

For  loss  of  youth  and  hope, 
Seemed  to  have  vowed,  long  years  before, 

To  fast  from  comb  and  soap. 

42 


"Halloo,  my  friend:  a  brood  like  that 

Should  head  the  other  way; 
The  land  is  broad  and  free,  and  fat — 

Go  take  it  while  you  may." 
Raising  his  glazed  and  dirty  sleeve, 

He  gave  his  mouth  a  wipe, 
And  answered,  with  a  sighing  heave, 

"Stranger,  pawpaws  is  ripe! 

"Don't  tell  me  of  your  corn  and  wheat 

What  do  I  care  for  sich? 
Don't  say  your  schools  is  hard  to  beat, 

And  Kansas  soil  is  rich. 
Stranger,  a  year's  been  lost  by  me, 

Searchin'  your  Kansas  siles, 
And  not  a  pawpaw  did  I  see, 

For  miles,  and  miles,  and  miles! 

"Missouri's  good  enough  for  me; 

The  bottom  timber's  wide; 
The  best  of  livin'  there  is  free, 

And  spread  on  every  side. 
In  course,  the  health  ain't  good  for  some, 

But  we're  not  of  that  stripe, 
Hey!  Bet  and  Tobe!  we're  gwien  home! 

Git  up!  Pawpaws  is  ripe!" 

43 


He  cracked  his  whip,  and  off  they  went, 
The  mule,  and  cow,  and  dogs. 

I  watched  them  till  they  all  were  blent 
With  distant  haze  and  fogs; 

And  as  the  blue  smoke  heavenward  curled 
Up  from  his  corn-cob  pipe, 

He  dreamed  not  of  that  better  world, 
For  here  pawpaws  were  ripe! 


Kansas 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


(Dedicated  to  Esther  M.  Clark,  author  of  "The 
Call  of  Kansas.") 


From  the  surge  of  the  western  ocean  and  the  roar 
ing  of  the  sea, 

From  the  Land  of  the  Orange  Blossom,  thy 
daughter  cried  to  thee, 

"Kansas,  beloved  Mother;"  so  I  with  a  heart  as 
sore 

Turn  from  the  wooded  hillside  and  vast  Atlantic's 
shore 

To  the  wind-swept  Kansas  prairies  and  golden 
seas  of  grain 

With  as  desperate  a  longing  and  hands  that  stretch 
as  vain. 

44 


Not  I  with  the  crowded  palette  of  genius-given  art 
Crystallize   into   perfection   the    yearning    of    my 

heart ; 
Her's   is   the  sun-kissed   rapture,   her's  is   the   gift 

divine, 
Only  the  blundering  phrases  of    awkardness    are 

mine  ; 
And  yet  from  the  hills  of  longing  thru  severing 

leagues  between 
I  cry  with  the  bitter  aching  of  loneliness  as  keen. 


Manhattan's  walls  reecho  with  a  million  clamor 
ing  cries, 
The  stars  grow  wan  above  her  in  the  glory  of  her 

eyes, 
The  sea  falls  down  before  her  like  a  lover  at  her 

knees, 

And  rich  is  she  in  raiment  of  his  purple  argosies, — 
A  queen  upon  a  dais  at  the  gateway  of  the  world, 
She  is  not  half  so  lovely  as  the  Prairie,  dewdrop 
pearled. 


45 


The  elms  of  Boston  murmur,  with  ghostly  memories, 

And  haunting  echoes  of  the  past  speak  still  in  cul 
tured  ease; 

But  at  her  heart  a  grave-yard  has  festered  with 
its  desd, 

A  white  skull  glistens  underneath  the  garlands  of 
her  head; 

Across  the  Kansas  prairies,  with  brown  and  dusty 
feet, 

The  wind-blown  sweetheart  of  the  Sun  has  gone 
her  lord  to  greet. 

Not  in  the  crowded  cities  of  money-maddened  men, 
Not  in  the  shaded  cloister  where  Learning  trims 

her  pen, 
But  out  on  the  Kansas  prairies,  in  the  purity  of  the 

Sun, 
There  are  the   great    thoughts   builded,    visions   of 

empires  begun; 
Here  on  the  wooded  hillside  I  sicken  in  heart  and 

brain, 
But  some  day,  beloved  Mother,  I'm  coming  home 

again. 


46 


Carrie  Nation 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


A.  poor,  bewildered,  half-crazed  crone 
She  died,  forgotten  and  alone ; 
And  some  there  were  who  stopped  to  scoff 
When  the  good  old  dame  was  taken  off, 
While  the  busy  world  went  wheeling  on 
Scarce  knowing  even  she  was  gone. 

Of  course,  she  may  have  done  some  good, 
But  then,  most  any  woman  could 
Who  had  the  muscle  and  a  hatchet, 
With  Irish  wit  as  keen  to  match  it; 
Yet  smashing  windows  so  erratic 
Soon  proved  her  just  a  plain  fanatic. 

A  sort  of  Jezebel  crusader, 
Like  Don  Quixote  nothing  stayed  her, — 
No  wonder  people  shied  eggs  at  her, 
She  seemed  to  like  to  watch  'em  splatter, 
And  stood  like  wild  things  when  at  bay 
So  sort  of  fearless,  old  and  gray. 


47 


And  then  to  die  so,  after  all, 
Insane  and  in  a  hospital, 
Good  God,  suppose  she  had  been  sane 
And  *ve  who  had  the  rotten  brain, 
I'd  hate  to  stand  on  Judgment  day 
Beside  that  woman  old  and  gray. 

I'd  hate  to  face  those  flashing  eyes 
That  scanned  a  state's  hyprocrisies 
And  woke  a  commonwealth  to  shame 
With  crashing  axe  and  words  of  flame 
Until  men  dare  to  carry  out 
The  laws  they  made  and  lied  about. 


John  Brown 

BY  EUGENE  F.  WARE. 


States  are  not  great 
Except  as  men  may  make  them; 
Men  are  not  great  except  they  do  and  dare. 

But  States,  like  men, 
Have  destinies  that  take  them — 
That  bear  them  on,  not  knowing  why  or  where. 

The  WHY  repels 
The  philosophic  searcher — 

48 


The  WHY  and  WHERE  all  questionings  defy, 

Until  we  find, 

Far  back  in  youthful  nurture, 
Prophetic  facts  that  constitute  the  WHY. 

All  merit  comes 
From  braving  the  unequal ; 
All   glory  comes  from   daring  to   begin. 

Fame   loves   the   State 
That,  reckless  of  the  sequel, 
Fights  long  and  well,  whether  it  lose  or  win. 

Than  in  our  State 
No    illustration   apter 
Is  seen  or  found   of   faith  and  hope  and  will. 

Take  up  her  story; 
Every  leaf  and  chapter 
Contains  a  record  that  conveys  a  thrill. 

And  there  is  one 

Whose  faith,  whose  fight,  whose  failing, 
Fame  shall  placard  upon  the  walls  of  time. 

He  dared  begin — 
Despite  the  unvailing, 
He  dared  begin,  when  failure  was  a  crime. 

When  over  Africa 
Some  future  cycle 

49 


Shall  sweep  the  lake-gemmed  upland  with  its  surge  ; 

When,  as  with  trumpet 
Of  Archangel  Michael, 
Culture  shall  bid  a  colored  race  emerge; 

When  busy  cities 
There,  in  constellations, 
Shall  gleam  with  spires  and  palaces  and  domes, 

With  marts  wherein 
Is  heard  the  noise  of  nations; 
With  summer  groves  surrounding  stately  homes — 

There,  future  orators 
To  cultured  freemen 
Shall  tell  of  valor,  and  recount  with  praise 

Stories  of   Kansas, 
And  of  Lacedaemon — 
Cradles  of  freedom  then  of  ancient  days. 

From  boulevards 
O'erlooking  both  Nyanzas, 
The  statured  bronze  shall  glitter  in  the  sun, 
With  rugged  lettering: 
"John  Brown  of  Kansas: 
He  dared  begin ; 

He  lost, 
But,  losing,  won." 

50 


John  Brown 

BY  W.  H.  SIMPSON. 


John  Brown — that's  all;  a  serious-purposed  man, 
Hard-handed,  tender-hearted;  God's  great  plan 
Through  his  gnarled,  knotty  nature  pulsing  ran. 

"Fanatic!"  hissed  the  mob,  with  loud  acclaim: 
They,  unremembered ;  he,  close-clasped  by  fame, 
While  fades  away  the  gallows'  dreadful  shame. 

Each  cause  its  Christ,  its  sacrifice  to  might! 
Scorn  soon  is  done,  and  Freedom's  piercing  light 
Dispels  the  mists  'round  Calvary's  awful  height! 


A  Tribute  to  John  Brown 

BY  J.  G.  WATERS. 

Against  this  crime  of  crimes  he   fought  and  fell; 

He  freed  a  race  and  found  a  prison-cell ; 

In  mid-air  hung  upon  the  gibbet's  tree, 

But  lived  and  died,  thank  God,  to  make  men  free. 

And  dusky  men  the  ages  down  will  tell. 
For  what  he  fought,  and  how  he  bravely  fell; 
And  dim  the  jewels  in  each  earthly  crown, 
Beside  the  luster  of  thy  name,  John  Brown. 
51 


John  Brown 

BY  WILLIAM  HERBERT  CARRUTH. 


Had  he  been  made  of  such  poor  clay  as  we, 

Who,  when  we  feel  a  little  fire  aglow 

'Gainst  wrong  within  us,  dare  not  let  it  grow, 
But  crouch  and  hide  it,  lest  the  scorner  see 
And  sneer,  yet  bask  our  self-complacency 

In  that  faint  warmth, — had  he  been  fashioned 
so, 

The  nation  ne'er  had  come  to  that  birth-throe 
That  gave  the  world  a  new  humanity. 
He  was  no  vain  professor  of  the  word — 

His  life  a  mockery  of  the  creed; — he  made 
No  discount  on  the  Golden  Rule,  but  heard 

Above  the  Senate's  brawls  and  din  of  trade 
Ever  the  clank  of  chains,  until  he  stirred 

The  nation's  heart  on  that  immortal  raid. 


52 


In  Idol-Smashing  Land 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


From  boulevards  o'erlooking  both  Nyanzas 

The  shaft  of  bronze  shall  glitter  in  the  sun 

With  rugged  lettering  "John    Brown  of  Kansas: 
He  dared  begin,  he  lost;  but  losing  won!" 
EUGENE  F.  WARE. 

Over  there  in  Kansas  they  have  torn  their  idols 

down, 
They  are  standing  up  and  jumping  on  the  grave  of 

Old  John  Brown; 
They  say  he  was  a  murderer,  a    cut-throat    and    a 

"red," 
He  started  Kansas  bleeding,  and  no  more  it  should 

be  "bled"— 

For  markers  and  for  monuments  and  cash-consum 
ing  things, 
To  mark  the  bloody  border  where  the  raider  had  his 

flings. 
The  state  has  put  the  money  up  to  save  Brown's 

cabin  shack — 

His  home  at  Osawatomie,  surrounded  by  a  park — 
So  when  his  soul,  that's  marching  on,  shall  come 

a-marching  back, 

53 


'Twill  have  a  place  to  huddle  in  and  hover  after 

dark. 
"John  Brown  of  Osawatomie,  he  made  our  soil  so 

free," 
This  poem  in  the  school  books  was  the  stuff  we  used 

to  see; 
But  now  they've  built  a  bonfire  underneath  the  soul 

of  John, 
So  hot  he  couldn't    light    there,    but    must    keep 

marchin'  on. 

For  when  the  legislature  passed  the  John  Brown 

cabin  bill, 
The  opposition  kicked  and  said  he  was  a  bad  old 

Pill; 

They  voted  not  to  honor  thus  the  early  Kansas 
saint, 

And  painted  John  Brown's  body  just  as  black  as 
they  could  paint. 

The  "Brown  of  Osawatomie"  the  muses  sing  about, 

They  said  was  Mr.  O.  C.  Brown,  who  laid  the 
townsite  out; 

The  old  John  Brown  who  loafed  there  was  a  horse- 
thief  and  a  bum, 

They'd  never  vote  to  honor  him,  they  said,  till  king 
dom  come. 


54 


"Old  John  Brown  was  an  anarchist  of  the  assassin 

breed, 
He  brought  no  wealth  to  Kansas,  and  he  only  made 

her  bleed; 
His  only  work  in  Kansas  was  for  lawlessness  and 

crime, 
He  was  the  Booth,  the  Guiteau  and  the  Czolgosz  of 

his  time. 

He  is  the  only  lurid  blot  upon  our  Kansas  fame, 
And  I,  for  one,  could  never  vote  to  keep  alive  his 

name." 

They  blackened  thus  the  name  of  Brown,  the  Kan 
sas  demigod, 

Who  with  the  blood  of  freedom  dewed  the  glisten 
ing  prairie  sod. 

Insurgent  Kansas  would  insurge  against  insurgents 
dead; 

Did  Old  John  Brown  turn  over  in  his  tomb  at  what 
they  said? 

His  "body  lies  a-mouldering  in  the  grave"  we  used 
to  sing  ; 

It  doubtless  then  is  mouldering  on  the  other  side 
this  spring. 

We  sang  "The  Stars  of  heaven  are  a-looking  kindly 
down," 


55 


But  the  stars  upon  the  Kansas  stage  are  blistering 

John  Brown. 
Another  instance  of  the  way  the  cards  of  fate  will 

stack, 
His  "soul  it  went  a-marching  on,"  and  now  it  can't 

come  back. 

No  name  is  safe  in  Kansas  where  the  idol-smasher 

knocks, 
They've  proved  that  Sockless  Jerry  really  wore  the 

best  of  socks; 

No  reputation  over  there  is  ever  made  to  last — 
Why,  even  William  Allen   White   has  heard   the 

thunder  blast ; 

That  "What's-the-matter"  article  in  '96  he  wrote, 
It  made  his  reputation  as  a  world-wide  man  of  note, 
And  now  the  Kansas  rebels  who  give  every  man  a 

fall, 
Declare  it  wasn't  written  by  Bill  Allen  White  at 

all. 

He  took  it  almost  bodily,  the  smashing  ones  declare, 
From  a  letter  that  was  written  by  the  Kansas  poet, 

Ware. 

'Twas  thus  they    dealt   with    William,    and    we'll 
hear,  'fore  very  long, 


56 


That  Ware,  himself  a  faker,  cribbed  his  "Wash. 

erwoman's  Song." 
For  they're  on  the  move  in  Kansas,  and  the  idol 

of  today 
Is  tomorrow  smashed  in  fragments  'mid  its  broken 

feet  of  clay. 
"It  is  morning  here  in  Kansas,"  as  Walt  Mason 

aptly  said, 
It  is  always  dawn  in  Kansas  and  the  morning  sky 

is  red. 
There  they  make  no  creed    their    jailer,    never  in 

their  slow  decay 

From  the  tomb  of  the  old  prophets  steal  the  fun 
eral  lamps  away 
To  light  up  the  martyr  fagots  'round  the  Prophets 

of  Today. 
But  the  prophets  of  the  present,  when  the  funeral 

lamps  are  .out, 
Take  the  dust  of  the  old  prophets  and  scatter  it 

about, 
And  the  soil  is  thus  kept  fertile  so  that  new  ideas 

can  spring, 
For  over  there  in  Kansas  still  the  intellect  is  king. 


57 


A  Wheat-Field  Fantasy 

BY  HARRY  KEMP. 


As  I  sat  on  a  Kansas  hilltop, 

While,  far  away  from  my  feet, 

Rippled  with  lights  and  shadows 
Dancing  across  acres  of  wheat, 

The  sound  of  the  grain  as  it  murmured 
Wrought  a  wonder  with  me — 

It  turned  from   the  voice  of  the  Prairie 
Into  the  roar  of  the  sea, 

And  I  saw,  not  the  running  wind-waves, 
But  an  ocean  that  washed  below 

In  ridging  and  crumbling  breakers 
And  ceaseless  motion  and  flow ; 

Then,  as  a  valley  is  flooded 

With  opaline  mists  at  morn 

Which  momently  flow  asunder 

And  leave  green  spaces  of  corn, — 

There  burst  the  strangest  vision 
Up  from  that  ancient  sea. — 

'Twas  not  the  pearl-white  Venus 
Anadgomene, 


58 


'Twas  the  bobbing  ears  of  horses 

And  a  head  with  a  great  hat  crowned 
And  a  binder  that  burst  upon  me 

Sudden,  as  from  the  ground — 

And  the  waves  gave  place  to  the  wheatlands 

Myriad-touched  with  gold — 
Then  my  soul  felt  century-weary 

And  untold  aeons  old; 

For  a  rock-ledge  sloped  beside  me 

And  the  lime-traced  shells  it  bore 

Had  plied  that  ancient  ocean 
Each  with  a  sentient  oar. 


The  Promise  of  Bread 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 

Out  on  the  frozen  uplands,  underneath  the  snow 

and  sleet, 
In  the  bosom  of  the  plowland  sleeps  the  Promise 

of  the  Wheat; 
With  the  ice  for  head-and-footstone,  and  a  snowy 

shroud  outspread 

59 


In  the  frost-locked  tomb  of  winter  sleeps  the  Mira 
cle  of  Bread. 
With  its  hundred  thousand  reapers  and  its  hundred 

thousand  men, 
And  the  click  of  guard  and  sickle  and   the  flails 

that  turn  again, 
And  drover's  shout,  and  snap  of  whips  and  creak 

of  horses'  tugs, 
And  a  thin  red  line  o'  gingham   girls  that  carry 

water  jugs; 
And  yellow  stalks  and  dagger  beards  that  stab  thro' 

cotton  clothes, 
And   farmer  boys  a-shocking  wheat  in    long    and 

crooked  rows, 
And   dust-veiled   men   on   mountain   stacks,   whose 

pitchforks  flash  and  gleam; 
And  threshing  engines  shrieking  songs  in  syllables 

of  steam, 

And  elevators  painted  red  that  lift  their  giant  arms 
And  beckon  to  the  Harvest  God  above  the  brooding 

farms, 
And  loaded  trains  that  hasten  forth,  a  hungry  world 

to  fill— 
All  sleeping  just  beneath  the  snow,  out  yonder  on 

the  hill. 


60 


A  Wilier  Crick  Incident 

BY  WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE. 

Long  ago  before  the  'hoppers    an'    the    drouth    of 

seventy-four, 
Long  before  we  talked  of  boomin',  long  before  the 

first  Grange  store. 
Long  before  they  was  a  city  on  the  banks  of  Wilier 

Crick, 
Come  a  woman  doin'  washin'  an'  a  little  boy  named 

Dick: 

Kinder  weakly  like  an*  sick: 
Wasn't  even  common  quick; 
An'   the   folks   said   that   his   daddy   used   to   be   a 

loonytic. 

He  was  undersized  an'  ugly  an'  was  tongue-tied  in 

his  talk; 
He  was  awkward  an'  near-sighted  an'  he  couldn't 

more'n  walk; 
An'  the  other  boys  all  teased  him;  no  one  knowed 

the  reason  why, 
'Cept  to  hear  his  mother  pet    him ;    "There,    ma's 

angul,  there,  don't  cry." 

When  they  was  nobody  nigh 
She  would  set  by  him  an'  sigh; 
An'  she'd  comb  his  hair  an'  kiss  him:  "Ma's  boy 

'ull  be  well,  bye'm  bye." 

61 


But  instead  of  gettin'  stronger  Dick  grew  thinner 

every  year; 
An'  although  his  legs  got  longer,  his  pore  brain 

ketched  in  the  gear. 
But  he  always  loved  the  crick  so,  an'  'twas  there  'at 

he  'u'd  play; 
Killin'  lucky  bugs  an'  buildin'  dams  'at  always  broke 

away. 

But  his  mother  used  to  pray: 
"God  make  Dickie  strong,  some  day!" 
God   'u'd  make  him  strong  an'   happy,  her  "pore 

angul"  she  'u'd  say. 

They  was  not  a  long  procession  when  he  died,  an' 
all  I  mind 

Was  a  little  green  farm  wagon  with  two  churs  set 
in  behind. 

But  it  held  a  lonely  mother  sobbin'  wildly  for  her 
own 

An'  the  sorrow  et  in  deeper  for  she  knew  she  griev 
ed  alone. 

'Mid  the  sunflowers  lightly  blown, 
Where  the  sticker  weeds  are  sown, 

No  one  knows  the    hopes    an'    heart-aches    buried 
'neath  that  rough-cut  stone. 


62 


A  Border  Memory 

BY  FLORENCE  L.  SNOW. 


We  had  moved  up  to  Palymra, 

In  the  year  of  sixty-one, 
From  our  claim  on  the  Neosho 

When  our  harvesting  was  done. 

Then  my  husband  had  enlisted, 

All  his  heart  divinely  stirred, 
And  I  lived  but  for  the  children, 

And  to  hear  the  scanty  word 

That  came  slowly  back  to  Kansas 

From  his  precious  company, 
As  the  crimson  tide  of  battle 

Bore  it  onward  to  the  sea. 

Twelve  months  passed,  and  the  next  spring 
time 

Came  with  clouds  of  denser  gloom, 
And  the  passion  on  the  prairies 

Broke  into  more  deadly  bloom; 


63 


And  the  summer  brought  the  terror 
Close  upon  the  shuddering  town, 

Of  the  bloody-handed  Quantrell 

On  the  country  sweeping  down. 

Day  by  day,  the  awful  menace 

Weighted  every  lingering  hour, 

And  we  slept  in  trouble  dreaming 
Of  the  fierce  marauder's  power. 

Night  by  night,  I  made  me  ready 
For  whatever  blow  might  fall, 

With  the  children  all  about  me, 
Trained  to  waken  at  my  call. 

And  I  gathered  strength  and  courage 
From  the  spirit  of  my  son, 

Such  a  bright,  intrepid  stripling — 
Ne'er  a  danger  he  would  shun. 

He  had  played  so  much  at  soldier, 
Marching  ever  in  the  van, 

He  had  taken  on  the  feeling 
And  the  valor  of  a  man. 


64 


So  I  listened,  sad  and  shrinking, 

When  upon  a  weary  day 
He  came  in  all  flushed  and  eager 
With  the  words  he  had  to  say: 

"All  the  men  are  clean  done  over, 
Watching  so  by  day  and  night, 

And  we  boys  are  going  on  duty — 
We're  just  spoiling  for  a  fight. 

"But  they  say  there  is  no  danger — 

Quantrell's  clear  across  the  line, 
And  we've  but  to  give  the  signal 
If  we  see  the  slightest  sign. 

"Jed  and  I — for  we're  the  oldest — 
Take  our  stand  at  Curran's  farm. 

You  don't  care  much,  do  you,  mother? 
We'll  be  safe  enough  from  harm." 

So  I  stifled  my  foreboding, 

Kissed  him  twice  and  let  him  go 
Out  into  the  somber  twilight 

In  the  pride  that  mothers  know. 


65 


Such  a  night !  all  torn  and  tortured 
By  a  host  of  nameless  fears, 

I  was  certain  every  minute 

There  would  fall  upon  my  ears 

The  abrupt,  determined   ringing 

Of  the  heavy  college  bell 
Which  in  preconcerted  clamor 

Any  peril  was  to  tell. 

And  I  seemed  to  hear  the  echoes 

Of  the  warfare  far  away: 
All  its  horror,  doubly  dreadful, 

Pressed  upon  me  where  1  lay. 

But  at  length  I  slumbered  briefly, 

And  the  dawn  in  sweet  surprise 

Filtered  through  my  eastern  window, 
Falling  gently  on  my  eyes. 

Then  deploring  all  my  weakness, 
Since  no  evil  chance  had  come, 

I  rejoiced  in  the  glad  morning 

That  would  bring  my  darling  home; 

So  to  give  him  instant  welcome 

I  flung  wide  the  outer  door, — 

And  I  found  him  'neath  the  trellis 
Lying  straight  upon  the  floor. 

66 


He  but  slept,  I  thought  in  wonder: 
It  was  death,  instead  of  sleep! 

Shot  down  by  a  passing  ruffian 

He  had  still  the  power  to  creep 

Toward  the  town  so  gladly  guarded 
In  the  strength  he  loved  to  try, 

And  but  reached  the  dear  home-shelter, 
Spent  with  effort,  there  to  die. 

That  same  day  devoted  Lawrence 

Was  destroyed  by  Quantrell's  band  ; 

I  was  only  one  of  many 

Smitten  by  a  murderous  hand, 

And  I   tell  my  story  calmly, 

Now  so  many  years  have  passed, 

But  whoever  gives  such  life-blood 
Feels  the  anguish  to  the  last. 

Yet  the  sorrow  has  its  glory, 

Shining  steady  like  a  star — 

All  the  world  had  need  of  Kansas, 
Consecrated  by  the  war. 

And  the  God  who  guides  our  battles 
Shaped  the  purpose  of  the  State ; 

We  have  bought  her  for  His  uses 
And  the  price  has  made  us  great. 


67 


The  Defense  of  Lawrence 

BY  RICHARD  REALF. 

All  night  upon  the  guarded  hill, 

Until  the  stars  were  low, 
Wrapped  round  as  with  Jehovah's  will 

We  waited   for   the  foe; 
All  night  the  silent  sentinels 

Moved  by  like  gliding  ghosts; 
All  night  the  fancied  warning  bells 

Held  all  men  to  their  posts. 

We  heard  the  sleeping  prairies'  breath, 

The  forest's  human  moans, 
The  hungry  gnashing  of  the  teeth 

Of  wolves  on  bleaching  bones; 
We  marked  the  roar  of  rushing  fires, 

The  neigh  of  frightened  steeds, 
The  voices  as  of  far-off  lyres 

Among  the  river  reeds. 

We  were  but  thirty-nine  who  lay 

Beside  our  rifles  then  ; 
We  were  but  thirty-nine,  and  they 

Were  twenty  hundred  men. 
Our  lean  limbs  shook  and  reeled  about, 

Our  feet  were  gashed  and  bare, 
And  all  the  breezes  shredded  out 

Our  garments  in  the  air. 
68 


Sick,  sick  of  all  the  woes  which  spring 

Where  falls  the  Southron's  rod, 
Our  very  souls  had  learned  to  cling 

To  freedom  as  to  God ; 
And  so  we  never  thought  of  fear 

In  all  those  stormy  hours, 
For  every  mother's  son  stood  near 

The  awful,   unseen  powers. 

And  twenty  hundred  men  had  met 

And  sworn  an  oath  of  hell, 
That  ere  the  morrow's  sun  might  set, 

Our  smoking  homes  should  tell 
A  tale  of  ruin  and  of  wrath 

And  damning  hate  in  store, 
To  bar  the  freeman's  western  path 

Against  him  evermore. 

And  when  three  hundred  of  the  foe 

Rode  up  in  scorn  and  pride, 
Whoso  had  watched  us  then  might  know 

That  God  was  on  our  side, 
For  all  at  once  a  mighty  thrill 

Of  grandeur  through  us  swept, 
And  strong  and  swiftly  down  the  hill 

Like  Gideons  we  leapt. 


69 


All,  all  throughout  that  Sabbath  day 

A  wall  of  fire  we  stood, 
And  held  the  baffled  foe  at  bay, 

And  streaked  the  ground  with  blood. 
And  when  the  sun  was  very  low 

They  wheeled  their  stricken  flanks, 
And  passed  on  wearily  and  slow 

Beyond  the  river  banks. 

Beneath  the  everlasting  stars 

We  bended  childlike  knees, 
And  thanked  God  for  the  shining  scars 

Of  His  large  victories ; 
And  some,  who  lingered,  said  they  heard 

Such  wondrous  music  pass 
As  though  a  seraph's  voice  had  stirred 

The  pulses  of  the  grass. 


Funston 

BY  JAMES  J.  MONTAGUE. 

Never  any  style  about  him,  not  imposing  on  parade ; 
Couldn't  make  him  look  heroic  with  no  end  of  golden 
braid. 

70 


Figure  sort  o'  stout  and  dumpy,  hair  an'  whiskers 

kind  o'  red; 
But    he's    always    movin'    forward    when    there's 

trouble  on  ahead. 
Five  foot  five  o'  nerve  an'  darin',  eyes  pale  blue  an' 

steely  bright, 
Not  afraid  of  men  or  devils — that  is  Funston  in  a 

fight. 

Fighter  since  he  learned  to  toddle,  soldier  since  he 

got  his  growth; 
Knows  the  Spaniard  and  the  savage — for  he's  fought 

and  licked  'em  both. 
Not  much  figure  in  the  ballroom,  not  much  hand 

at  breakin'  hearts, 
Rotten   ringer   for  Apollo,  but  right  there  when 

something  starts. 
Just  a  bunch  of  brain  and  muscle,  but  you  always 

feel,  somehow, 
That  he'll  get  what  he  goes  after  when  he  mixes 

in  a  row. 

Weyler  found  out  all  about  him,  set  a  price  upon 

his  head; 

Aguinaldo's  crafty  warriors  filled  him  nearly  full 
o'  lead. 


71 


Yellow  men  and  yellow  fever  tried  to  cut  off  his 

career, 
But  since  first  he  hit  the  war-trail  it  has     never 

slipped  a  gear. 
And  the  heart  of  all  the  nation  gives  a  patriotic 

throb 
At  the  news  that  Kansas  Funston  has  again  gone 

on  his  job. 


Ode  to  Kansas 

BY  WALT  MASON. 


Kansas:  Where  we've  torn  the  shackles 

From  the  farmer's  leg; 
Kansas:    Where  the  hen  that  cackles, 

Always  lays  an  egg; 

Where  the  cows  are  fairly  achin' 

To  go  on  with  record  breakin', 

And  the  hogs  are  raising  bacon 

By  the  keg ! 


72 


My  Sage-Brush  Girl 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


Under  a  cross  in  a  rainless  land  my  Sagebrush  Girl 

is  sleeping, 
Her  beautiful  eyes  shine  out  no  more;  her  cheeks 

have  shed  their  bloom. 
The  cactus  pierces  her  dreamless  heart  and  I  have 

ceased  from  weeping. 
My  eyes  are  dry  as  the  stunted  sage  that  parches 

o'er  her  tomb. 

The  years  have  withered  my  flesh    like    grass,    and 

filled  my  heart  with  knowing; 
I,  who  was  desert  born  and  reared,  have  won  to 

the  garden  lands, 
Where  the  earth  is  robed  in  a  rug  of  green  and 

the  barley  blooms  are  blowing, 
And  the  dewdrops  blaze  where  the  stalks  of  maize 

hold  up  their  heavenly  hands. 

Deep  in  the  dust  of  a  desert  waste  my  Sagebrush 

Girl  reposes; 
Her  beautiful  eyes  shine  out  no  more;  her  lips  have 

bloomed  and  died; 
A  gypsum  bed  in  the  desert  dead    has  won  her 

cheeks'  red  roses; 
And  the  day  of  our  dream  is  a  sinking  sun  dipped 

under  the  Great  Divide. 

73 


I  know  who  wielded  the  flaming  sword  that  drove 

my  tribe  before  me 
Into  the  dusty  desert  wide,  where  all  the  flowers 

are  dead; 
Know  why  we  met  in  a  rainless  land  when  the  dream 

of  dreams  came  o'er  me; 
We  were  the  disinherited  kin  of  the  lords  of  meat 

and  bread. 

We  were  the  poor  outside  the  door  of  the  Garden 

of  Singing  Water; 
The  poor  who  scurry     like     hunted     things  to  the 

arid  wastes  to  hide. 
So  I  was  born  to  the  desert  sands  and  she  was  the 

desert's  daughter — 
But  I  have  won  to  the  garden  lands,  while  she  in  the 

desert  died. 

Those  yearning  days  were  a  drama  dear  that  the 

drop  of  the  curtain  closes. 
Her  beautiful  eyes  shine  out  no  more,  her  lips  have 

ceased  to  glow. 
A  gypsum  bed  in  the  desert  dead  has  won  her  cheeks' 

red  roses, 
But  I  have  seen  from  a  hillside  green  the  black 

hawk  drifting  slow. 


74 


Plowing  Corn  in  Kansas 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


They're  plowing  corn  in  Kansas  upon  the  old  home 
farm, 

The  slender  shoots  are  up  a  foot,  the  morning  sun 
is  warm, 

The  dew  is  fading  from  the  grass,  I  see  the  yel 
low  breast 

Of  Father  'Meadow-lark  come  home  to  that  low- 
hidden  nest  ; 

He's  had  his  morning  whistle  while  the  meadow- 
lands  were  dark 

And   he's  brought   a  squirming  breakfast  back   to 
Mrs.  Meadow-lark. 
***#*# 

So  hurry  up  them  horses,  boys,  and  watch  old  Jim 

and  Kate, 
Hop  down  and  leave  the  water-jug  beside  the  open 

gate  ; 
I've  got  my  red  bandanner  on  and  opened  up  my 

shirt, 
And  the  cultivator-shovels  are  a'gouging'  through 

the  dirt. 


75 


It's  half  a  mile  before  we  turn  and  take  another 

row, 
For  it's  plowing-time  in  Kansas  and  the  morning 

sun  is  low. 

Hi,  Tommy,  there's  a  gopher,  can't  you  hit  him 

with  a  clod? 
Get  a  hard  one,  that's  the  ticket,  or  a  suncaked 

lump  of  sod. 
I  heard  another  chipper  over  yonder — Gosh,   I'm 

hot, 
And  old  Kate  has  nipped  her  breakfast  over  half 

a  city-lot; 
But   you    can't    be   minding   horses   and    a'chasing 

gophers,  too, 
And  the  boss  won't  go    plumb    busted    'cause    old 

Katie  had  a  chew. 

Say,  you're  crowding  pretty  close  there,  can't  you 
hold  'em  in  a  spell? 

You  must  think  a  horse's  sneezing  suits  my  shirt- 
tail  pretty  well. 

Never  knowed  a  mare  like  that  'un,  when  she  creeps 
up  close  behind 

She  is  sure  to  swaller  something  and  to  snort  her 
self  plumb  blind ; 


76 


Blamed  if  I'd  a'  rode  so  near  you,  if  I  didn't  think 

that  you 
Know'd  enough  to  keep  them  horses  back  the  way 

you  ought  to  do. 

That  rabbit's  mighty  impident  a'  browsin'  round  so 

brash, 
Just  reach  me  that  'ere  black-snake    and    I'll    give 

his  legs  a  lash; 
And  that  crow  will  lose  his  tail-piece  if  he  gets 

so  near  the  wheel, 
Serve  him  right  the  greedy  beggar, — worms  must 

make  a  messy  meal. 
Don't  see  why  the  prairie  critters  act  so  sort  of 

confident — 
Thar!  I  said  ye'd  git  in  trouble — wisht  I  had  some 

liniment. 

I  think  I  see  the  gate-post,  Tom  and  there's  the 

water-jug, 
I'll  beat  ye  there.     Oh,  drat  the  luck,  old  Pete  has 

dropped  a  tug. 
Look  out,  you're  tearin'  up  the  corn,  that  ain't  the 

way  to  do, 


77 


I'd  give  you  walking-papers  if  I  was  hirin*  you. 
You've  drunk  up  half  a  gallon, — but  I  guess  there 

ain't  no  harm, 
We'll  both  drive  back  to  fetch  some  more.     I  feel 

uncommon  warm. 
****** 

They're  plowing  corn  in  Kansas,  the  morning  sun 
is  high, 

You'll  hear  a  cow-bell  ringing  through  the  silence 
by  and  by; 

And  then  an  apron  waving  nearly  half  a  mile  away, 

It's  dinner  time,  I  think  there'll  be  some  rhubarb- 
pie  today. 

But  I'm  in  Massachusetts,  and  we've  had  a  tardy 
spring, 

And  'twas  only  just  this  morning  that  I  heard  a 
robin  sing. 


Sunflowers  in  the  Corn 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

There's  a  certain  day  in  summer  that  I  always  rec 
ognize, 
Though  I'm  far  from  prairie  land  and  sun, 


78 


By  the  pulling  at  my  heart-strings  and  the  aching 

in  my  eyes, 

And  I  know  that  back  in  Kansas,  harvest's  done. 
The  mellow  sun  is  gleaming  on  the  stacks  of  ripened 

wheat, 

The  stubble-field  is  empty  and  forlorn, 
With  a  hoe  across  my  shoulder  and  bare-footed  in 

the  heat, 
I  am  off  to  cut  the  sunflowers  in  the  corn. 


Oh,  what  mystery  of  magic  down  the  green  and 

gracious  aisles, 

Lures  me  on  and  on  forever  to  the  end. 
The  flapping  corn   is    whispering    while    summer 

bends  and  smiles, 
The   warm    wind    scampers,    shouting,     "Follow, 

friend." 
He  is  all  about  me  tugging,  with  his  shoulder  pressed 

to  mine 
"Come  and  catch  me,  don't  you  feel  my  circling 

arm? 
Oh,  there  never  was  a  farmer  boy  with  comrade 

such  as  thine; 
See,  I  flush  thy  cheek  with  kisses,  what's  the  harm  ?" 


79 


The  corn  is  waving  o'er  me  and  the  swelling  ears 
are  sweet 

Where  the  silver  floss  is  pushing  from  the  white. 

What  a  wealth  of  scarlet  mallow  bloom  is  crimson 
ing  my  feet; 

There's  a  turtle — watch  him  scramble  out  of  sight. 

Why,  there's  every  prairie  creature  here — a  dove 
upon  her  nest, 

Two  white  eggs  beneath  a  friendly  cockle-bur; 

Lucky  thing  for  you,  old  cocky.  You're  a  most  out 
rageous  pest, 

But  I'll  pass  you  by  because  you  shelter  her. 

Here's  a  sunflower — watch  him  nodding  with  his 
saucy,  swarthy  face, 

Golden-earringed,  don't  you  see  the  gypsy  king? 

Amber  beads  bedangled  o'er  him  with  a  frankly, 
flaunting  grace, 

How  he  jostles  Mr.  Cornstalk,  poor  old  thing. 

Here,  you'll  have  to  stop  it,  Tony,  for  you  quite 
forget  that  you 

Are  a  tramp,  for  all  gaudy,  gilded  crown; 

You're  a  vagrant,  and  a  dead-beat,  you're  a  non- 
producer,  too. 

And  I've  come  to  chop  you,  Tony — tumble  down. 


80 


What  a  revelation  dawning,  what  a  wonder  over 
head, 

All  the  tender,  over-arching  azure  dome. 

With  the  sun  ablaze  above  me,  is  it  prairie  paths 
I  tread? 

No,  'tis  fairyland,  'tis  fairyland  I  roam. 

Titania  is  swinging  in  a  silken  hammock  hung 

From  burly  thistle-top  to  golden  rod; 

There's  a  Puck  on  every  jimson-weed  where  once  a 
spider  swung, 

While  milk-weeds  chamber  Pixies  in  each  pod. 

Oh,  'tis  fairyland,  'tis  fairyland,  and  I  a  warrior 
stout 

With  saber-steel  aflashing  in  the  sun, 

How  I  charge  the  crazy  gypsy  kings  and  put  them 
all  to  rout; 

Watch  the  long  battalions  waver,  break,  and  run. 

Hark,  I  hear  a  bugle  calling  me,  the  battle-pen 
nons  gleam, 

Forward. once  again  the  supper-horn, 

And  I  wander  home  at  twilight  (Can  it  be  I  only 
dream?) 

From  a  day  of  awful  carnage  in  the  corn. 


81 


Cutting  The  Corn 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


The  morning  glows  on  marching  rows 

Of  weary,  tattered  corn; 
The  landscape  looms  with  draggled  plumes 
And  garments  frayed  and  torn. 

The  day  of  doom  is  rising  high 
When  all  the  cornfield  soldiers  die. 

Scream,  ravens,  scream,  the  summer  dream 

Shall  crumble  in  the  breeze; 
Stare,  red-eyed  day,  with  sickly  ray, 
Above  the  dogwood  trees. 

The  cringing  nymphs  are  terror 

dumb, 
The  harvest  of  the  corn  has  come. 

Trail  tangled  silken  sheen  no  more; 

Blue  velvet  blossoms  bleed  and  die  ; 
For,  crashing  through  your  bosom's  core, 

The  doom  shall  smite  you,  hip  and  thigh. 
A  tear  or  two  of  sweetened  dew 
The  mourning  year  shall  weep  for 
you. 

82 


The  farm  boy  stands  with  eager  hands, 

That  clasp  the  bluish  blade; 
Then  right  and  left  the  stacks  are  cleft, 
And  now  a  wigwam's  made. 

And  like  an  Indian  village  rise 
The  yellow  tents  before  our  eyes. 

Each  blade  stroke  stirs  the  cockle-burrs 

And  crab-grass  growing  by, 
While  echoes  shout,  "Come  out,  come  out! 
And  see  the  cornfields  die!" 

And  unseen  nymphs  go  skipping  past 
Unhoused,  unheveled,  doomed  at  last. 

Stampeded  hosts  of  Indian  ghosts, 

And  many  a  vanished  chief, 
Ride  racing  by  with  battle  cry — 
But  never  stir  a  leaf! 

And  brooding  dreams  of  other  days 
Drift  down  like  dust  upon  the  maize. 

In  gold  and  green  the  country  scene 

Is  decked  in  harvest  trim; 
The  sunshine  sifts  in  bluish  drifts 
Across   the   landscape  dim. 

And  thronging  through  the  autumn 

air 

Are  gossamers  of  dryads'  hair. 
83 


The  fodder  shocks  will  feed  the  flocks 

And  herds  of  grunting  swine; 
But  now  they  stand  a  ghostly  band 
Of  tepees  in  a  line. 

The  ancient  moon  creeps  up  the  hill 
To  listen  to  the  whippoorwill. 


A  Ridge  of  Corn 

BY  HAMLIN  GARLAND. 


With  heart  grown  weary  of  the  heat, 
And  hungry  for  the  breath 

Of  field  and  farm,  with  eager  feet 
I  trod  the  pavement  dry  as  death 

Through  city  streets  where  vice  is  born — 

And  sudden,  lo !  a  ridge  of  corn. 

Above  the  dingy  roof  it  stood, 

A  dome  of  tossing,  tangled  spears, 

Dark,  cool  and  sweet  as  any  wood, 

Its  silken  gleam  and  plumed  ears 

Laughed  on  me  through  the  haze  of  morn, 

The  tranquil  presence  of  the  corn. 


84 


Upon  the  salt  wind  from  the  sea, 

Borne  westward  swift  as  dreams 
Of  boyhood  are,  I  seemed  to  be 

Once  more  a  part  of  sounds  and  gleams 
Thrown  on  me  by  the  winds  of  morn 
Amid  the  rustling  rows  of  corn. 

I  bared  my  head,  and  on  me  fell 
The  old  wild  wizardy  again 

Of  leaf  and  sky,  the  moving  spell 
Of  boyhood's  easy  joy  or  pain, 

When  pumpkin  trump  was  Siegfried's  horn 

Echoing  down  the  walls  of  corn. 

I  saw  the  field   (as  trackless  then 

As  wood  to  Daniel  Boone) 
Wherein  we  hunted  wolves  and  men, 

And  ranged  and  twanged  the  green  bas 
soon. 

Not  blither  Robin  Hood's  merry  horn 
Than  pumpkin  vine  amid  the  corn. 

In  central   deeps  the  melons  lay, 
Slow  swelling  in  the  August  sun. 

I  traced  again  the  narrow  way, 

And  joined  again  the  stealthy  run. 


85 


The  jack-o'-lantern  race  was  born 
Within  the  shadows  of  the  corn. 

O  wide,  west  wilderness  of  leaves! 

O  playmates  far  away!  O'er  thee 
The  slow  wind  like  a  mourner  grieves, 

And  stirs  the  plumed  ears  like  a  sea. 
Would  we  could  sound  again  the  horn 
In  vast  sweet  presence  of  the  corn! 


Farm  Machinery 

BY  WALT  MASON. 


We  have  things  with  cogs  and  pulleys  that  will 
stack  and  bale  the  hay,  we  have  scarecrows  auto 
matic  that  will  drive  the  crows  away;  we  have  rid 
ing  cultivators,  so  we  may  recline  at  ease,  as  we 
travel  up  the  corn  rows,  to  the  tune  of  "haws"  and 
"gees";  we  have  engines  pumping  water,  running 
churns  and  grinding  corn,  and  one  farmer  that 
I  know  of  has  a  big  steam  dinner  horn;  all  of 
which  is  very  pleasant  to  reflect  upon,  I  think,  but 
we  need  a  good  contrivance  that  will  teach  the 
calves  to  drink. 

Now,  as  in  the  days  of  Noah,  man  must  take 
a  massive  pail,  loaded  up  with  milk  denatured,  with 

86 


?.  dash  of  Adam's  ale,  and  go  down  among  the  calf- 
kins  as  the  lion  tamer  goes  'mong  the  monarchs  of 
the  jungle,  at  the  famous  three-ring  shows;  and 
the  calves  are  fierce  and  hungry,  and  they  haven't 
sense  to  wait,  till  he  gets  a  good  position  and  has 
got  his  bucket  straight;  and  they  act  as  though  they 
hadn't  e'en  a  glimmering  of  sense,  for  they  climb 
upon  his  shoulders  ere  he  is  inside  the  fence,  and  they 
butt  him  in  the  stomach,  and  they  kick  him  every 
where,  till  he  thinks  he'd  give  a  nickle  for  a  decent 
chance  to  swear;  then  they  all  get  underneath  him 
and  capsize  him  in  the  mud,  and  the  milk  runs  down 
his  whiskers  and  his  garments  in  a  flood,  and  you 
really  ought  to  see  him  when  he  goes  back  to  his 
home  quoting  divers  pagan  authors  and  the  bards  of 
ancient  Rome.  And  he  murmurs  while  he's  washing 
mud  off  at  the  kitchen  sink:  "What  we  need  is  a 
contraption  that  will  teach  the  calves  to  drink!" 

We've  machinery  for  planting,  we've  machines 
to  reap  and  thrash,  and  the  housewife  has  an  engine 
that  will  grind  up  meat  for  hash ;  we've  machines 
to  do  our  washing  and  to  wring  the  laundered  duds, 
we've  machines  for  making  cider  and  to  dig  the 
Burbank  spuds;  all  about  the  modern  farmstead 
you  may  hear  the  levers  clink,  but  we're  shy  of  a 
contrivance  that  will  teach  the  calves  to  drink! 


87 


The  Land  That  God  Forgot 

BY  HARRY  KEMP. 

Oh,  the  land  that  God  forgot 

Where  the  sand  and  cactus  ruled, 

Paradise  of  rattlesnakes, 

Bald  and  arid,  brackish-pooled; 

Hither  Coronado  came 

Lusting  after  precious  stones, 
And  the  fiery  desert  waste 

Whitened  everywhere  with  bones; 

Then  the  Forty-niners  passed 

With  their  oxen  gaunt  and  thin 

And  they  only  knew  the  land 
As  a  place  to  perish  in; 

But  at  last  the  mind  of  Man 

With  a  vision  fired  and  thrilled 

Saw  how  empires  lay  asleep, 

Dreamed  of  homes  with  comfort  filled, 

So  the  tawny  sand  was  trenched 

With  a  thousand  fluid  bars 
Which  revived  the  ancient  plain 

Like  the  waterways  of  Mars: — 


88 


Now  the  tender  grass  springs  up, 

And  the  sleek  kine  lay  them  down, 

And  the  freights  toil  in  and  out, 

Fat  with  wares  from  many  a  town; 

And  the  wheat  rolls,  billowy-vast, 
And  the  ancient  ocean  bed 

Sends  up  miles  of  tasseled  corn 
Nodding  many  a  silken  head ; 

Schools  are  builded,  churches  rise, 
Children  to  the  clime  are  born, 

And  they  learn  to  love  the  land 
Once  a  hissing  and  a  scorn. 

The  land  that  God  forgot, 

Cactus-haunted,  desert-wild, 

Where  the  wide,  bare  bluffs  and  plains 
Never  with  a  harvest  smiled ! 

The  land  that  God  forgot, 

Barren  with  Oblivion's  curse! — 
Nay,  it  held  a  wealth,  like  gold 

In  a  miser's  wretched  purse. 

God  forget?     Through  all  the  years, 

As  a  father  'neath  a  vow, 
He  preserved  its  virgin  worth 

For  its  marriage  with  the  Plow. 

89 


Before  the  Robin  Dares 

BY  ROSE  MORGAN. 


In  the  dark  of  dawn  at  the  verge  of  spring 
I  heard  the  red  bird  caroling. 

******* 

When  snow  patches  lie  on  the  links'  soft  folds, 
Or  ever  the  willow  a  catkin  holds, 

When  the  pines  stand  dark  in  the  darkling  west, 
While  the  east  flushes  soft  as  his  shy  mate's  breast, 

The  red  bird  warm  from  the  heart  of  spring 
Sets  bare  branches  a  blossoming; 

And  from  out  the  dark  rings  his  challenge  clear, 
What  cheer  among  mortals?     What  cheer?     What 
cheer? 

At  the  sound  of  his  clarion  sweet  and  high 
My  heart  forgets  the  springs  gone  by, 

And  answers  him  back  in  the  dawn  of  the  year, 
All  cheer,  fellow  mortal!     What  cheer?    All  cheer. 
#***### 

In  the  dark  of  dawn  at  the  verge  of  spring 
I  hear  the  red  bird  caroling. 


90 


Pine  Trees  in  Kansas 

BY  ROSE  MORGAN. 


"We  go  to  rear  a  wall  of  men 
On  freedom's  southern  line, 
And  plant  beside  the  cotton  tree 
The   rugged   northern   pine." 

— Whittier. 

The  cottonwood,  own  child  of  radiant  spring, 
Stands  all  aflutter  in  its  shimmering  green, 
As  not  of  Earth  but  of  some  realm  serene 
Where  Winter  never  comes,  and  Light  is  king, 
Whither  its  leafy  pinions  quivering, 
Its  upflung  boughs  in  their  soft  silver  sheen, 
Seem  ready  to  transport  it  when  the  keen 
Arctural  blasts  stop  its  brief  bourgeoning. 
Behind  it  rise  the  pines  in  dull  array, 
Dark  wintry  aliens  in  a  sunbright  land; 
Yet  winter's  strength  their  level  boughs  display, 
Strength  fitted  winter's  tempests  to  withstand; 
And  on  them  rests  a  glory  past  compare — 
The  fulfilled  hope  of  those  who  set  them  there. 


91 


Bouncing-Bet 

(In  memoriam;  Kansas,  1874) 
BY  ROSE  MORGAN. 


When  that  I  see  thee  by  the  dusty  road, 
Or  where  some  kindly  householder  has  spared 
The  sprawling  matted  growth  that  thou  hast  dared 
To  trail  along  the  skirts  of  his  abode, 
When  that  I  see  thee  thus,  chance-sprung,  wind- 
sowed, 

A  wildling  waif  for  whom  no  one  has  cared, 
My  eyes  are  filled,  thinking  thou  hast  fared 
As  other  prophets  to  whom  much  is  owed. 
For  when  the  winged  scourge  swept  o'er  our  land, 
Leaving  all  black,  laying  all  green  things  low, 
Thy  pale  sweet  blossoms  scatheless  it  passed  by — 
Through  thee  God  let  our  fathers  understand — 
Unloved  and  useless,  still  'twas  thine  to  show 
A  modest  face  undaunted  to  the  sky. 


92 


The  Thrush 

BY  AMANDA  T.  JONES. 


Through  half  a  June  day's  flight, 
Upon  the  prairie,  thirsting  for  the  showers 

The  cactus-blooms  and  prickly  poppies  white, 
The  fox-gloves  and  the  pink-tinged  thimble-flowers 

Drooped  in  the  Lord's  great  light. 

Now  suddenly,  straight  to  the  topmost  spray 
Of  a  wild  plum-tree   (I  thereunder  lying) 

Darted  a  thrush  and  fifed  his  roundelay 
Whimsey  on  whimsey,  not  a  stave  denying. 

Quoth  I:  "From  regions  measureless  miles 

away, 
He  hears  the  soughing  winds  and  rain-clouds  flying; 

And  gathering  sounds  my  duller  ears  refuse, 
He  sets  the  rills  a-rush 

This  way  and  that  to  ripple  me  the  news 
(Right  proud  to  have  his  little  singing  say!) 
And  brings  the  joy  to  pass  with  prophesying." 

So  gladly  trilled  the  thrush! 


93 


Soon  was  I  made  aware 
Of  his  small  mate   that  from  the  Judas-tree 

Dropped  softly,  flitting  here  and  flitting  there, 
And  would  not  seem  to  hear  or  seem  to  see. 

He,  in  that  upper  air, 
All  mindful  of  her  wayward  wandering, 

(Primrose  and  creamy-petaled  larkspur  bend 
ing 
And  yellow  blossomed  nettle,  prone  to  sting!) 

Shook  out  his  red-brown  wings  as  for  descend 
ing 

But  lightly  settled  back,  the  more  to  sing. 
"O  bird !"  I  sighed,  "thy  heedless  love  befriending 

With  that  celestial  song-burst — whirling  swift 
As  Phaeton's  chariot-rush! — 

Should   my  dear  angel's  voice  so   downward 

drift 

Quick  would  my  music-lifted  soul  take  wing!" 
Now  had  earth's  happiest  song  a  heavenly  ending, — 

Sped,  with  his  mate,  the  thrush. 


94 


Sunflowers 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


I  saw  a  field  of  sunflowers 

When  all  their  bloom  was  shed, 
A  field  of  Kansas  sunflowers 

All  standing  brown  and  dead, 
They  hovered  there  upon  the  hill; 
And  like  a  phantom  crew, 
The  ghost  of  all  the  sunflowers, 

The  prairies  over  grew 
Came  trooping  toward  me  in  a  crowd 
Each  shining  through  a  misty  shroud 
And  flashed  like  fireflies  thro'  my  brain 
As  once  they  lit  the  Kansas  plain. 

For  I  have  known  the  sunflowers 

As  well  as  mortals  know; 
They  leaned  to  me,  the  sunflowers 

And  whispered,  long  ago — 
The  things  the  sunflowers  told  me  then, 
Some  day  I'll  tell  the  world  again, 
Some  day  when  all  their  fairy  band 
Is  banished  out  of  Kansas  land. 


95 


For  they  are  of  the  sprite  world, 

They  are  a  fairy  band, 
They  speak  in  mystic  meanings 

We  scarcely  understand. 
They  sprang  in  shining  lanes  of  gold 
Across  the  prairies  where  of  old 
The  "Forty-Miners'  "  creaking  wains 
Went  rutting  through  the  grassy  plains 

And  so  were  born  the  sunflowers, 

The  nymphs  of  earth  and  air; 
They  reached  their  arms  imploring, 

They  tossed  their  golden  hair, 
They  were  a  fairy  band  that  cried, 
"The  gold  is  here  on  every  side," 
And  yet  the  argonauts  went  by 
To  vanish  in  the  sunset  sky. 

My  playmates  were  the  sunflowers 

Besides  the  sod  house  door, 
They  spread  a  sweet  enchantment 

That  lured  me  evermore 
Their  army  queen,  with  shields  ablaze 
Went  marching  down  the  summer  ways — 
Across  the  mystic  prairie  land 
Where  Youth  and  I  walked  hand  in  hand. 

96 


The  land  grew  full  of  cornstalks 
That  flapped  against  the  sky, 
The  summer  sun  went  running 

Across  the  wheat  and  rye, 
And  nestling  in  the  sunflower's  shade 
The  wild  canary's  nest  was  made; 
And  every  dream  within  me  born 
Was  of  the  sunflowers  and  the  corn. 

The  sound  of  splashing  raindrops, 

The  whistle  of  the  quail, 
The  roar  of  men  and  reapers, 

The  night  hawk  in  the  vale  ; 
The  crooning  of  the  cradle  song, 
Out  in  the  west  where  I  belong, 
A  day  that  nevermore  may  be. 
Is  what  the  sunflowers  say  to  me. 


The  Little  Old  Sod  Shanty 
On  the  Claim 

A  FRONTIER  SONG.  (Anonymous) 

Tune — "The  Little  Old  Log  Cabin  in  the  Lane." 
I  am  looking  rather  seedy  now,  while  holding  down 
my  claim, 

97 


And  my  victuals  are  not  always  served  the 

best, 

And  the  mice  play  slyly  'round  me  in  my  shanty  on 
the  claim 

As  I  lay  me  down  alone  at  night  to  rest ; 

Yet  I  rather  like  the  novelty  of  living  in  this    way 

Though  my  bill-of-fare  is  always  rather 

tame — 

For  I'm  happy  as  a  clam,  on  this  land  of  Uncle 
Sam 

In  my  little  old  sod  shanty  on  the  claim. 


CHORUS. 

The  hinges  are  of  leather,  and  the  windows  have 
no  glass, 

While  the  roof  it  lets  the  howling  bliz 
zards  in; 

And  I  hear  the  hungry  coyote,  as  he  sneaks  up  thro' 
the  grass, 

Round  my  little  old  sod  shanty  on  the 
claim. 


98 


But  when  I  left  my  Eastern  home,  so  happy  and 
so  gay, 

To  try  and  win   my   way   to   wealth   and 

fame, 

I  little  thought  that  I'd  come     down     to     burning 
twisted  hay 

In  my  little  old  sod  shanty  on  the  claim. 
My  clothes  are  plastered  o'er  with  dough,  I'm  look 
ing  like  a  fright, 

And    everything    is   scattered    'round    the 

room ; 

And  I  fear  if  P.  T.  Barnum's  man  of  me  should 
get  a  sight, 

He  would  take  me  from  my  little  cabin 
home. 

I    wish    that   some    kind-hearted    miss   would   pity 
on  me  take, 

In  this  mess,  and  extricate  me  from  the 

same ; 

The  angel !  how  I'd  bless  her,  if  this  her  home  she'd 
make 

In  my  little  old  sod  shanty  on  the  claim; 
And  when  we'd  make  our  fortune  on  the  prairies  of 
the  West, 


99 


Just  as  happy  as  two  bed-bugs  we'd  re 
main; 

And  we'd  forget  our  trials  and  our  troubles  while 
we'd  rest 

In  our  little  old  sod  shanty  on  the  claim. 

If  now  and  then  a  little  heir  to  bless  our   lives  was 
sent, 

Our  hearts  with  honest  pride  to  cheer  and 

flame, 

We  would  surely  be  content  for  the  years  that  we 
had  spent 

In  our  little  old  sod  shanty  on  the  claim. 
And  after  years  elapse  and  all  those  little  chaps 

To   men    and   honest    womanhood    have 

grown, 

It  won't  seem  half  so  lonely  if  a  dozen  cozy  cots 
Surround  our  old  sod  shanty  on  the  claim. 

CHORUS. 

The  hinges  are  of  leather,  and  the  windows  have 
no  glass, 

While  the  roof  it  lets  the  howling  bliz 
zards  in, 

And   I   hear   the  hungry  coyote,   as  he  sneaks  up 
through  the  grass, 

Round  my  little  old  sod    shanty    on    the 
claim. 

100 


The  Song  of  the  Kansas 
Emigrant 

BY  JOHN  G.  WHITTER. 


We  cross  the  prairies  as  of  old 
The  Pilgrims  crossed  the  sea, 

To  make  the  West,  as  they  the  East, 
The  homestead  of  the  free. 

CHORUS 
The  homestead  of  the  free,  my  boys, 

The  homestead  of  the  free, 
To  make  the  West,  as  they  the  East, 

The  homestead  of  the  free. 

We  go  to  rear  a  wall  of  men 

On   Freedom's   Southern  line, 

And  plant  beside  the  cotton-tree 
The  rugged  Northern  pine. 

We're  flowing  from  our  native  hills, 

As  our  free  rivers  flow  ; 
The  blessings  of  our  mother-land 
Is  on  us  as  we  go. 

101 


We  go  to  plant  her  common  schools 

On  distant  prairie  swells, 
And  give  the  Sabbaths  of  the  wild 

The  music  of  her  bells. 

Upbearing,  like  the  ark  of  old, 

The  Bible  in  her  van, 
We  go  to  test  the  truth  of  God 

Against  the  fraud  of  man. 

No  pause,  nor  rest,  save  where  the  streams 

That  feed  the  Kansas  run, 
Save  where  our  pilgrim  gonfalon 

Shall  flout  the  setting  sun. 

We'll  tread  the  prairies  as  of  old 

Our  fathers  sailed  the  sea; 
And  make  the  West,  as  they  the  East, 

The  homestead  of  the  free. 


102 


Stay  West,  Young  Man 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


Out  of  the  West  they  called  me,  and  I  turned  my 

face  to  the  East 

And  there  was  pride  in  my  going,  as  a  bridegroom 
goes  to  the  feast; 

Here  in  the  land  of  legend  and  the  region 

of  romance 
I  should  sit  at  the  feet  of  learning  and 

charter  thought's  advance, 

For  every  eastern  hill-top  was  sacred  and  divine 
To  the  humble  prairie  plow-boy  who  sought  in  the 
East,  a  sign. 

Out  of  the  East  I  turn  me — God,  what  my  eyes 

have  seen! — 

From  a  land  of  degenerate  farmers,  from  the  Land 
of  the  Might  Have  Been, 

From  the  narrow  hills  of  learning  where 

the  lamp  of  truth  goes  out 
And  the  still,  small  voice  of  the  spirit  is 

drowned  in  the  vulgar  shout, 
From  a  land  of  wanton  cities  and  dread  night  things 

that  prey, 

I  turn  my  face  to  the  West-land, — God,  gave  me 
one  prairie  day! 


103 


Give  me  the  blaze  of  sunshine,  give    me  the    open 

sky, 

The  crude,  young  strength  of  manhood  undrained  in 
harlotry, 

Give  me  a  voice  that  thunders  and  wisdom 

to  restrain, 
The  flail  of  honest  anger     and     pity     for 

men's  pain, 
Give  me  the  faith  of  Kansas  and  a  few  young  men 

I  know, 

And  we'll  carry  the   gates   of   Gaza   and  shatter 
Jericho. 

The  East  is   an    ulcered    carcass,    bedecked    like    a 

courtesan, 

The  West,  like  a  boy,  has  heard  her  call  and  flush 
ed  through  his  coat  of  tan, 

He  has  spent,    like    Samson,    his    body's 

strength  for  a  gaudy  finger-ring 
And  the  East  has  fettered  him  body  and 

soul  with  a  rope  of  twisted  string; 
But  I  cannot  keep  in  silence  the  things  my  eyes 

have  seen 

As  I  turn  to  the  youth  of  Kansas  from  the  Land  of 
the  Might  Have  Been. 


104 


Manhood 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


Out  of  the  reek  and  swelter,  out  of  the  sink  of 
shame, 

Shape  us  the  perfect  manhood  that  leaps  like  a  liv 
ing  flame. 

The  Old  World's  foul  corruption  is  poured  on  our 

naked  shores, 
And  the  soul  of  the  nation  festers,  ulcerate  with 

sores. 
The  sons  of  the  Pilgrim  Fathers,  on  the  hills  their 

fathers  trod, 
Have  reared  Gomorrah  and  Sodom  in  the  face  of 

their  fathers'  God; 
And  the  land  of  the  bloody  meadows,  of  slaughtered 

brother  and  son 
Is    foul    with    the    nameless    vintage    of     perished 

Babylon. 
The  fields  of  folly  are  ripened,  red  and  shameless 

and  bold ; 

The  harvest  is  ready  for  reaping,  and  Esau's  birth 
right  sold. 


105 


The  brave  little  Mayflower  breasted  the  thunder 
ing  leagues  of  foam, 

But  the  peoples  she  engendered  have  builded  a 
modern  Rome. 

Rome  of  the  corybantic  worship  of  Orsiris, 

Rome  of  the  leprous  satyr  and  dumb  Astarte's  kiss. 

The  land  of  Standish  and  Edwards,  Revere  and 
Nathan  Hale, 

Has  clanged  to  the  clamoring  cymbals  in  the  hands 
of  the  priests  of  Baal. 

Better  the  blast  of  sirocco  and  a  sudden  terrible 

death 
Than  to  dwell  in  the  tents  of  the  godless  and  suckle 

a  harlot's  breath. 

Better  a  nation  perish,  root  and  blossom  and  branch, 
Whelmed   by   the  mighty  thunder  of  God's  great 

avalanche, 
Than  to  rear  in  perfumed  cities  a  brood  with  feeble 

chins 

Whose  delicate  fingers  tickle  emasculate  violins, 
Where  palaces  of  marble  rise  over  Eastern  seas 
And  people  starve,  while  wantons  batten  on  lux 
uries. 

Out  of  America's  sorrow,  out  of  America's  shame, 
Shape  us,  O  God,  the  manhood  that  leaps  like  a 
living  flame. 

106 


A  Challenge  to  Youth 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


Lo,  I  will  shape  you  a  song  for  only  the  strong 

to  sing, 
And  swift  are  its  words  and  sure  as  the  hammered 

sword  of  a  king, 
And  the  grip  of  my  hand  is  stern  as  I  turn  to  its 

fashioning. 

You  who  are  young  and  clean  and  sweetened  by 
the  sun, 

Who  have  followed  the  binder  afield  till  the  blind 
ing  day  was  done 

And  the  sheaves  of  beaten  gold  were  garnered  every 
one, 

Who  have  slept  'neath  the  open  sky  and  pillowed 
a  dusty  head 

On  the  shiny  saddle-leather,  nor  wished  for  a  bet 
ter  bed, 

For  you  is  the  music  moulded,  for  you  is  the  anvil 
red. 


107 


I  sing  you  the  song  of  Kansas,    of    reaper,    brand, 

and  spade, 
The  sword  of  youth  more  splendid  than  Alexander's 

blade, 

The  flag  of  faith  transcendant  in  a  mighty  last 
Crusade. 

For  I  have  seen  the  cities  that  loom  over  eastern 
seas, 

And  trodden  the  purple  vintage  of  ancient  revel 
ries, 

Where  the  simpering  grin  of  Bacchus  is  the  mask 
of  miseries. 

The  midnight  reeled  with  laughter  of  rioting  wo 
men  and  men, 

Sleek  waiters  tiptoed  after  and  brimmed  the  glasses 
again, 

Till  the  night  was  a  blare  of  ragtime  and  red  with 
lust  and  pain. 

For  this  is  the  brood  of  the  cities,  elegant,  debonair, 
Men  with  the  scars  of    license    and    women    with 

shoulders  bare — 
But  I  have  swung  in  the  saddle  and  swallowed  the 

prairie  air. 


108 


The  tang  of  the  sun-dried  grasses,  the  spangled  cup 

of  the  sky, 
The  yelp  of  a  hundred  devils  that  shriek  in  the 

coyote's  cry, 
And  forty  miles  of  freedom  and  the  moon  to  canter 

by. 

For  I  have  walked  the  corn-rows  that  are  so  cool 
and  green, 

And  I  have  found  the  nesting  dove  under  the  bur 
dock  screen, 

And  many  other  wondrous  things  that  no  one  of 
these  has  seen. 

Oh,  none  beside  the    farmer    boy    who    walks    the 

rows  of  corn, 
When  blowing  winds  are  ministers  that  sound  a 

silver  horn, 
And  dreams  bud  like  the  prairie  rose  upon  a  fairy 

thorn. 

But  now  I  sound  to  battle  and  brazen  the  notes  are 

blown, 
You  whom  the  sun  has  strengthened,  follow! —  the 

flag  is  flown! 
And  if  you  will  not  follow,  I'll  spur  to  the  charge 

alone, 

109 


Lev,  this  is  the  song  I  shape  you,    a    song    for    the 

strong  and  fleet, 
A  sword  for  the  arms  that  wrestle  with  slippery 

shocks  of  wheat, 
A  flag  of  the  dreams  of  Kansas  by  wide  winds 

winnowed  sweet. 

A  sword  for  the  youth  of  Kansas,  a  song  for  their 

lips  to  sing, 
The  reckless  sword  of  manhood,  blue  steel  from  the 

furnacing, 
Oh,  who  will  dare  to  wear  it,  still  fresh  from  its 

fashioning  ? 


Kan  sas 

BY  HARRY  KEMP. 

Give  me  the  land  where  miles  of  wheat 
Ripple  beneath  the  wind's  light  feet, 
Where  the  green  armies  of  the  corn 
Sway  in  the  first  sweet  breath  of  morn ; 
Give  me  the  large  and  liberal  land 
Of  the  open  heart  and  the  generous  hand. 
Under  the  widespread  Kansas  sky 
Let  me  live  and  let  me  die. 

110 


An  Epic  For  Kansas 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


I  have  stood  on  the  hill  where  Warren  looked  out 
over  Charlestown  Bay 

When  the  confident  British  frigates  opened  the  fate 
ful  fray 

And  the  red-coats  stormed  the  bulwarks  on  an  un- 
forgotten  day. 

From  a  swarm  of  Italian  children  rises  the  old 
North  spire 

Where  Robert  Newman  mounted  to  kindle  the  bea 
con  fire 

And  hang  in  his  rusty  lanterns  the  star  of  a  new 
empire. 

And  I  have  passed  beneath  it  to  where  on  the  silent 

hill 
Old  Cotton  Mather  slumbers  and  his  thundering 

voice  is  still 
That  sentenced  the  Salem  witches  and  wrought  his 

shame-red  will. 


Ill 


And  northward  in  the  harbor,  though  the  steadfast 

masts  are  bare, 
I  have  climbed  to  the  Constitution  over  an  oaken 

stair 
And  stroked  the  immortal  cannon  that  silenced  the 

Guerriere. 

Old    Ironsides   rides   at   anchor   and   her   mightier 

children  creep 
Home  from  the  far-flung  ocean  that  the  war-dogs 

guard  and  keep, 
The  terrible,  steel-shod  grey-hounds  that  harry  the 

flanks  of  the  deep. 

Old  Ironsides  in  harbor,  and    every    voyage    done, 
Home  from  the  screaming  shrapnel  and  death-ex 
haling  gun, 

Home  where    heroes    slumber    with    Prescott    and 
Washington. 

What  have  we  in  Kansas,  we  of  the  Golden  West, 
To  equal  their  deeds  of  glory  and  kindle  a  patriot's 

breast 
With  tales  of  wild  night-riding  and  names  by  a 

nation  blessed  ? 


112 


Is  all  of  the  wonder  vanished  ?  Are  all  of  the  dreams 
forgot, 

All  of  the  stress  of  battle  when  blood  is  stream 
ing  hot 

And  the  dead  undying  squadrons  go  down  in  a  crim 
son  blot? 

Not  alone  in  the  trenches  where  throbbing  war- 
drums  beat 

Are  mustered  the  nation's  heroes  from  ranks  of 
the  strong  and  fleet, 

But  out  of  the  feeble  marchers  on  bruised  and 
lagging  feet. 

And  we  of  the  West  have  vanquished  the  stubborn 

lonely  plain 
And  stormed  the  heights  of  famine  and  foundered 

the  ships  of  pain 
And  clothed  with  an  emerald  garment  the  ancient 

scars  of  Cain. 

Never  a  trumpet  sounded,  never  a  blast  was  blown 
When  the  pioneers  of  Kansas  marched  out  to  a 

field  unknown 
And  fronted  drought  and  hunger,  unheralded  and 

lone. 

113 


What  of  the  days  of  struggle,  the  young  corn 
shrivelled  sear 

With  scarcely  a  blade  left  glossy  and  never  a  full- 
formed  ear, 

And  Care  to  eat  at  your  table,  and  you  made  a  bed 
with  Fear? 

Never   a  church-bell   ringing,    scarcely    a    passing 

friend 
Till  it  seemed  you  had  walked  forever  and  reached 

the  horizon-end; 
And  ever  the  treeless  prairie  and  the  blazing  skies 

that  bend 

Down  like  a  copper  furnace,  and  the  wind  that 

burned  and  stung, 
The  white-washed,   one-roomed  shanty  where  the 

withered  moon-vine  clung, 
And  you  wondered  if  you  had  dreamed  it  that  once 

you  were  gay  and  young. 

What  have  we  in  Kansas,  sprung  from  those  pio 
neers — 

A  story  of  deeds  our  fathers  wrought  through  the 
barren  years, 

A  tale  that  our  mothers  sweetened  with  a  bap 
tism  of  tears. 

114 


Give  me  the  strength  to  sing  it,  the  epic  of  our  dead. 

The  legend  of  their  glory  and  the  armies  vanquish 
ed; 

Their  battle-fields  of  anguish  bearing  a  nation's 
bread, 

And  those  who  have  knelt  in  homage  before  an 

Eastern  shrine 
Shall  shake  to  a  mightier  music  and  pledge  with 

a  ruddier  wine 
The  pioneers  of  Kansas — Come  touch  your  cup 

to  mine. 


April  on  Half  Moon 
Mountain 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


Seed  time  and  weed  time  and  cattle  out  to  grass, 
Women-folk    a-settin'    hens    and    plantin'    garden- 

sass. 
Gee,  I'm  tired  of  pickled  pork    and    home    baked 

beans — 

Mother,  pass  the  sassafras  and  sour  dock  greens. 
Peach  bloom  and  mint  perfume  and  me  a-diggin' 

bait, 
I  ought  to  be  a-plowin',  but  the  fish  won't  wait. 

115 


Out  of  the  Kansas  Dust 

BY  GEORGE  T.  AND  C.  L.  EDSON. 

Out  of  the  dust  of  Kansas, 

In  old,  primeval  days; 
Out  of  the  shroud  of  a  drifting  cloud 

Across  its  grassy  ways — 
Flaunting  the  flag  of  the  prairie  dust, 

The  shaggy  bisons  graze, 
Over  a  landscape  red  with  rust 
The  herds  emerge  from  the  Kansas  dust. 

Treading  the  dust  of  Kansas, 

Before  she  knew  her  name ; 
Standing  aghast  at  the  vernal  vast, 

The  spying  Spaniard  came. 
And  his  armour  scales  in  the  grassy  vales 

Gleamed  out  like  an  oriflamme, 
As  he  sought  for  the  fabled  city,  thrust 
Afar  in  the  phantom  desert's  dust. 

Trailing  the  dust  of  Kansas, 

The  Forty-Niners  went; 
Over  the  grass  their  oxen  pass, 

With  their  drovers,  travel-spent. 
And  the  weary  weep  their  souls  to  sleep, 

And  lie  in  a  grassy  tent, 
While  the  rest  press  on  with  feverish  lust, 
For  the  sunset  land  and  its  yellow  dust. 
116 


Into  the  dust  of  Kansas 

Went  tribe  and  caravan; 
All  swallowed  up  in  the  desert's  cup 

That  drank  them,  horse  and  man. 
And  the  vision  bold  and  the  dream  of  gold, 

It  died  as  it  began. 

And  the  dreamer's  heart  turned  mold  and  must 
And  drifted  dead  in  the  dreamless  dust. 

Out  of  the  dust  of  Kansas 

The  marching  dead  return — 
Beneath  the  beat  of  their  spectral  feet 

The  springing  poppies  burn! 
And  out  of  their  tomb  the  towers  loom 

Like  genii  from  an  urn. 
The  burnished  cities  are  skyward  thrust, 
Rending  the  veil  of  the  Kansas  dust. 

Out  of  the  dust  of  Kansas, 

They  lift  the  voice  of  song; 
Out  of  her  heart  the  visions  start 

That  lead  the  world  along! 
Her  sons  have  eaten  the  mystic  bread 

That  makes  a  people  strong. 
And  he  whom  the  stumbling  nations  trust 
Is  salting  the  world  with  the  Kansas  dust. 

117 


The  Old  Timer 

BY  WALT  MASON. 


You've  built  up  quite  a  city  here,  with  stately 
business  blocks,  and  wires  a-running  far  and  near 
and  handsome  concrete  walks.  The  trolley  cars 
go  whizzing  by,  and  smoke  from  noisy  mills  is 
trailing  slowly  to  the  sky,  and  blotting  out  the 
hills.  And  thirty  years  ago  I  stood  upon  this  same 
old  mound,  with  not  a  house  of  brick  or  wood  for 
twenty  miles  around.  I'm  mighty  glad  to  be  alive, 
to  see  the  change  you've  made;  it's  good  to  watch 
this  human  hive,  and  hear  the  hum  of  trade! 
I  list  to  the  moans  and  wails 

Of  your  town,  with  its  toiling  hands, 
But  O  for  the  lonely  trails 

That  led  to  the  unknown  lands! 
I  used  to  camp  right  where  we  stand,  among 
these  motor  cars,  and  silence  brooded  o'er  the  land 
as  I  lay  'neath  the  stars,  save  when  the  drowsy  cat 
tle  lowed,  or  when  a  broncho  neighed;  and  now 
you  have  an  asphalt  road,  and  palaces  of  trade. 
We  hear  the  clamor  of  the  host  on  every  wind  that 
blows,  where  people  take  the  time  to  boast  of  how 


118 


their  city  grows!    I  do  not  doubt  that  you  will  rise 
to  greater  heights  of  fame,  and  maybe  paint  across 
thr  skies  your  city's  lustrous  name! 
I  list  to  the  ceaseless  tramp 

Of  the  host,  with  its  hopes  and  fears ; 
But  O  for  the  midnight  camp 

And  the  sound  of  the  milling  steers ! 


When  She  Was  Born  Upon 
That  Kansas  Hill 

BY  WILLIAM  HERBERT  CARRUTH. 

When  she  was  born  upon  that  Kansas  Hill 

Soft  April  tiptoed  through  the  prairie  grass, 
Bidding  the  early  meadow-larks  be  still 

And  listen  for  the  coming  soul  to  pass. — 
It  came  with  soundless  music  from  the  deep, 

Fulfilled  with  superhuman  harmony 
That  charmed  the  waiting  Easter-bells  to  sleep 

And  made  them  dream  of  mornings  yet  to  be, 
When  she  should  romp  that  hill  and  greet  the  sun 

With  her  clear  treble  and  drink  the  spicy  air 
And  pulse  in  time  with  all  the  life  begun 

In  that  soft  season  of  what  is  sweet  and  fair. 
Oh,  there  was  joy  enough  that  April  morn 
Over  the  Kansas  Hill  where  she  was  born! 

119 


Tescot  t 

BY  WILLIAM  HERBERT  CARRUTH. 

Somewhere  out  West  there  lies  a  sloping  plain 
That  looks  across  the  winding  river-track 
A  mile  away  to  northward,  bluish-black 

With  elm  and  cottonwood,  then  up  again 

Rises  to  meet  the  distant  sky.    Green  grain 

And  greener  grass  in  spring;    in    fall,    wheat 

stack 
And  pink-brown  prairie  grass,  stock  at  the  rack, 

And  marvels  of  sky  this  landscape   doth  contain. 

Here  was  my  dear  one  born  and  passed  her  days, 
Familiar  with  each  bird  and  flower  and  tree, 

Light-hearted,  supple-thewed,  a  boy  in  ways, 

Knew  nature,  music,  books,  but  knew  not  me. 

How  beautiful  her  youth!  yet  I  confess, 

The  memory  breeds  in  me  strange  loneliness. 


120 


The  Real  Foreign  Invasion 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 

I'm  going  to  quit  the  farm,  Bill,  my  farming  days 
are  done — 

The  young  ones  all  have  left  me  to  swell 

the  city  tide; 

My  years  have  passed  the  zenith  and  life's  declin 
ing  sun 

Is  gleaming  from  the    Westward    across 
the  prairies  wide. 

I've  cattle  in  the  feed  lots  and  porkers  in  the  shed, 
And  hayracks  and  haystacks  and  cribs  of 

Kansas  corn — 

But,  O,  it  seems  a  pity,  all  the  boys  have  sought 
the  city, 

And  none  would  stay  to  till  the  soil,  the 
land  where  they  were  born. 

I've  seen  my  children  leave  me  and  then  those  of  all 
my  neighbors, 

And  then  I  saw  my  neighbors    go,     and 

foreign  farmers  came ; 

And  the  cattle  at  the  mangers  knew  the  accents  of 
the  strangers, 

And  the  English  tongue   is   silenced   and 
the  land  is  not  the  same. 
121 


Of  all  the  old    Americans    that    settled    up    this 
country, 

The  boys  that  were   my   comrades    when 

your  dad  was  green  as  May, 

Who  made  the  old  days  merry  as  we  broke  the  vir 
gin  prairie — 

They  are  sleeping  'neath  the  limestone  or 
they've  wandered  far  away. 

I  have  seen  the  dark  Bohemians  come  creeping  all 
around  me — 

McCracken  sold  and  Jenks  sold,  and  Rab 
bit  Smith  he  died; 

And  then  there  came  a  season  when  to  sell  it  seem 
ed  a  treason, 

For  the  native  crowd  began  to  fear  the 
sweeping  foreign  tide. 

For  every  time  a  farm  was  sold  a  foreigner  would 
take  it, 

Well  I  remember  Sod  Corn    Jones,     the 

way  it  hurt  his  pride — 

On  the  homestead  that  he  founded,  when  at  last  he 
was  surrounded, 

By  the  men  from  Southern  Europe  join 
ing  fence  on  every  side. 


122 


Forty  years  have  rolled  above  me,  years  of  drought 
and  years  of  plenty, 

Since  we     steered     our     covered     wagon 

through  the  blue  stem  of  this  state; 
And  each  fellow  stuck  his  mug  out  of  the  sod  con 
structed  dugout, 

And  began  the  task  of  harnessing  the  cap 
rices  of  fate. 

We  had  claimed  a  virgin  country  where  no  plow 
had  kissed  the  grass  roots; 

We  were  first  to  come  with  hamestraps 

and  with  wheels  and  plowing  gear, 
And  the  hoppers  and  the  blizzards  couldn't  daunt 
our  youthful  gizzards, 

For  our  army  days  were    over,    but    our 
fighting  line  was  here. 

Of  the  boys  that  whipped  the  prairie  in  the  days 
of  "little  eating," 

When  the  rabbit  was  our  savior  and  we 

cooked  with  "prairie  coal," 

Not  a  one  is  left  to  cheer  me  as  the  evil  days  come 
near  me, 

And  the  flag  of  my  surrender  hangs  half- 
masted  at  the  pole. 

123 


O'er  yon  hilltop  is  the  village  one  time  filled  with 
Yankee  fellows, 

Where  we  used  to  loaf  in  summer  when 

the  corn  was  in  the  ear; 

There   the  strangers  now   are   thronging  and    my 
heart  is  crushed  with  longing, 

As  I  wander  through  the  village  and  no 
native  accents  hear. 

I  have  kept  the  vow  I  promised;  I'm  the  last  to 
leave  my  birthright; 

I'm  the  last  whose  tongue  knows  English, 

and  my  eyes  are  wet  with  tears; 
For  last  week  old   Bill   Deventer  took  the  train 
from  Richland  Center, 

And  the  last  link  broke  that  bound  me  to 
those  early  Kansas  years. 

I   had   hoped  my  children's   children  here   would 
till  these  fertile  acres, 

Tend  the  cattle  on  the  hillsides  and  the 

clover  in  the  dales; 

And  we've  all  reared  boys  a-plenty,  but  when  they 
reached  one  and  twenty, 

City-ward  they  went  a-flying  down  yon 
reach  of  shining  rails. 

124 


Strange,  glum  men  from  o'er  the  ocean,  with  their 
wasteful  farming  methods, 

Till  those  farms  that  Yankee  muscle  once 

made  laugh  a  harvest  tide; 

And  where  Rabbit  Smith  lies  sleeping,  alien  feet 
go  creeping,  creeping, 

And   the   plow    whose    kisses    curse    us 
spreads  its  desolation  wide. 

Sod  Corn  Jones  whose  magic  foresight  proved  that 
new  turned  sod  was  able 

To  yield  up  a  hundred  bushels  to  the  acre 

cropped  in  maize  ; 

In  his  grave  he  must  be  burning,  with  a  frenzy  and 
a  yearning, 

For  his  land     is    surely    turning — desert 
tilled  in  fatal  ways. 

Who  will  save  this  land  from  ruin,  from  the  dust 
storm  and  the  famine; 

Why  have   all    our     farm-bred     children 

spurned  their  father's  native  soil? 
Why  is  English  no  more  spoken  in  the  fields  our 
plows  have  broken? 

Must  my  land  be  ripped  to  bedrock,  now 
that  I'm  too  old  to  toil? 


125 


I  had  hoped  some  son  returning  from  the  wage  war 
in  the  city 

Would  take  up  this  rich  dominion  I  have 

battled  for  so  long; 

So  that  in  the  summer  weather,  Ma  and  I  could  sit 
together 

And  could  watch  the  browsing  cattle  and 
could  hear  the  harvest  song. 

One  by  one  our  children  left  us,  one  by  one  our 
friends  departed, 

Till  no  soul  that  knew  the  rapture  of  the 

conquest  of  the  grass 

Is  beside  us  at  the  parting,  none  to  see  the  tear 
drops  starting, 

But  I've  kept  the  vow  I  promised,  and  my 
time  has  come  to  pass. 

Fare  you  well,  my  Kansas  acres,  when  the  sun  comes 
up  tomorrow, 

Strangers'  eyes  shall   lift    to    greet    you, 

strangers'  feet  my  fields  shall  tread ; 
And  the  long  teeth  of  the  river,  they  shall  gnaw 
these  hills  forever, 

And  God  help  my  city    children    in    the 
hour  they  ask  for  bread. 

126 


The  Gradgerratun'  of  Joe 

BY  WILLIAM  ALLEN  WHITE. 

Way  down  crost  the  meadow  an'  cow-lot, 

Thro'  paths  made  by  cattle  an'  sheep, 
Where,  cooled  in  the  shade  by  the  tall  ellums  made, 

The  old  crick  has  curled  up  to  sleep; 
Down  there  where  the  wind  sighun'  mingles 

'Ith  prattelun'  waters  at  play, 
And  the  coo  coo  coo  of  the  turtle-dove  too, 

Seeps  in  from  the  dim  far  away; 
Down  there  by  the  banks  of  the  Wilier — 

In  spring  where  the  sweet-williams  grow — 
'Twas  at  this  place  'at  he  all  the  time  used  to  be — 

The  home  of  our  little  boy  Joe. 
My  oh — 

How  long  ago. 

Nope;  none  o'  you  couldn't  a'  knowed  him, 

Way  back  there  in  seventy-four, 
When  Idy  an'  me  concluded  'at  we 

'Ud  edjicate  Joe,  rich  or  pore. 
I  mind  how  we  skimped,  scraped  an'  worried, 

An'  how  our  first  Christmas  was  dim, 
An'  how  mother  cried  when  we  had  to  decide, 

We  couldn't  send  nothin'  to  him. 

127 


An'  nobidy  else  dreams  the  sorrow 

'At  Idy  an'  me'd  undergo, 
A  livin'  that  way  all  alone  ever'  day, 
A  yearnun'  an'  longun'  fer  Joe. 
High  O. 

Long  ago. 

So  Idy  an'  me  went  together, 

To  hear  little  Joe  gradgerrate; 
Little  Joe,  did  I  say  ?     Meant  big,  anyway ; 

He  spoke  on  the  subject  of  "Fate." 
An'  my!  but  the  "effort  was  splendid," 

The  folks  said  'at  set  by  my  side, 
But  I  never  hurd  a  sentence  'er  word, — 

An'  mother  jest  broke  down  an'  cried. 
I  hadn't  the  heart  fer  to  ask  her 

What  was  the  matter,  you  know; 
Fer  I  felt  she'd  'a'  said:  "Our  baby  is  dead, 

I  want  back  my  own  little  Joe: 
Our  Joe 

Of  long  ago." 

So  f oiler  me  down  thro'  the  cow-lot — 

Thro'  paths  made  by  cattle  an'  sheep, 

To  where  in  the  shade  by  the  tall  ellums  made 
The  old  creek  is  tucked  in  to  sleep ; 

128 


Where  sighs  of  the  tired  breeze  whisper 

To  quiet  the  waters  at  play; 
An'  the  dreamy  coo  coo  of  the  turtle-dove  true 

Frightens  care-phantoms  away; 
Fer  I  like  to  set  hyur  a  thinkun', 

An'  astun  the  waters  'at  play, 
What's  come  o'  the  dear  little  boy  'at  played  here 

In  the  days  o'  the  long  ago  ? 
Our  Joe; 
High  ho! 


The  Red  Bird 

BY  AMANDA  T.  JONES. 


*********** 

III. 

Be  the  weather  never  so  cold,  we  hear 
Your  voice  in  the  tree-tops,  trombone  clear: 
"Come  out  in  the  bitter!" — "Now  what  do  you 

fear?" 

But  ever  your  challenge,  bright  trumpeter,  varies: 
"Come  hither!"— "Come  hurry!"— "Come  see  the 


green  prairies 


"Wild    roses!"— "Primroses!"— "Blue   vetches !"- 

S— o  n— e— a— r!" 

*********** 

129 


The  Maverick 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

There  is  wonder  in  the  wander-lust  that  sets  the 

feet  to  roaming, 
And  love  has  met  me  on  the  road  and  sweetened 

all  the  gloaming, — 
Still,  hard  it  is  to  walk  so  far,  the  while  my  heart 

is  homing 
For  the  West-land,  the  best  land,    the    land    that 

gave  me  birth, 
The  wide  and  sunny  prairie-land,  the  fairest  land 

of  earth, 

Oh,  hills  are  kind  and  comforting,  and  spicy  woods 
are  clean, 

And  there's  familiar  friendship  in  the  homely  dales 
between, 

But  I  have  seen  the  sunflower  in  a  dress  of  dusty 
green, 

The  sunflower,  the  one  flower,  the  flower  that  gyp 
sies  wear 

When  they  go  singing  down  the  years,  with  star- 
dust  in  their  hair. 


130 


Oh,  every  road  in  Kansas-land  is  walled  about  with 

gold, 

And  overhead  the  August  sun  is  like  a  lord  of  old 
A-riding  down  to  Palestine,  and  staunch  is  he  to 

hold 
The  West  way,  the  best  way,  the  way  that  I  would 

take 
If  I  could  scale  these  sullen  walls  where  all  my 

lances  break. 

The  hills  of  Massachusetts  are  a-bud  with  early 
spring, 

But  it's  little  that  I  reck  or  care  for  all  their  bur 
geoning  ; 

For  my  heart  is  at  the  stirrup  and  I  feel  the  pommel 
swing, — 

The  West-land,  the  blessed  land,  I  hear  the  homing 
call, 

The  wide  and  sunny  prairie-land,  the  fairest  land 
of  all. 


131 


Threshing  Time 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


There's  dew  on  the  stubble  and  fog  in  the  air, 

And  a  red  eye  peeps  over  the  hill, 
And  a  white  flag  of  steam,  flaring  up  with  a  scream, 
Has  awakened  the  dull,  drowsing  doves  from  their 

dream 

On  the  aged,  gray  granary  sill. 
And  through  dew  on  the  grasses  and  fog  in  the  air, 
The  throng  of  the  threshers  is  gathering  there. 
With  toiling  and  tugging,  and  lifting  and  lugging, 
They  belt  the  steam  engine  that's  wheezing   and 

chugging — 

And  pitchforks  are  gleaming  and  laborers  laugh, 
Preparing  to  hurry  the  wheat  from  the  chaff. 

The  smoke  and  the  vapor  float  over  the  trees, 

And  a  stamping  horse  rattles  a  chain ; 
And  men  with  red  handkerchiefs  looped   at  their 

throats 
Are  climbing  the  mountains  of  barley  and  oats, 

The  beautiful  Alps  of  the  gram. 
The  smoke  and  the  vapor  floats  over  the  trees, 
And  the  sun  now  has  routed  the  fog  on  the  breeze, 
While  creaking  and  turning  and  slapping  and  churn 
ing, 

The  belted  red  thresher  has  lisped  out  its  yearning — 
132 


Has  mumbled  its  hunger  in  mournfulest  note, 
And  the  first  sheaf  is  ground  in  its  ravenous  throat. 

II. 

"Look  out,  fellers.    Let  'er  go! 
Pitch  them  first  few  bundles  slow. 
Hold  on  son,  don't  gash  my  hands 
When  you're  cuttin'  off  them  bands. 
Wheat's   a-spilling.     Hey,   you   Jack! 
Run  that  cussed  wagon  back! 
Grab  a  wheel,  Bill,  help  him  there. 
We  ain't  got  no  wheat  to  spare. 
Wheat's  too  high  now,  I'll  be  bound, 
To  thresh  and  throw  it  on  the  ground. 
Belts  off  now!    And  I  just  said 
You  boys  would  get  her  over-fed. 
You  mustn't  try  to  rush  her  through; 
The  straw's  still  tough  and  damp  with  dew. 
When  the  sun  gets  two  hours  high 
You  will  find  it's  plenty  dry. 
All  right,  let  'er  go  again; 
Now  we're  threshin'  out  the  grain. 
See  how  plump  them  berries  is. 
That's  the  stuff  that  does  the  biz. 
That  there  wheat's  from  college  seed 
Of  selected  Turkey  breed; 


133 


The  land  was  fall  plowed  just  as  soon — 
All  right,  boy,  she's  blowed  for  noon. 
Ease  her  down  and  hold  her  steady, 
Women  folks  says  grub  is  ready." 

III. 

Now  the  thirsty  sun  swings  lower  on  his  torrid  path 
to  earth, 

And  the  yellow  straw  is  piling  toward  the 

sky. 

Say,  a  feller  learns  at  threshin'  what  a  drink  of 
water's  worth, 

For  it  tastes  as  sweet  as  cider  when  you're 
dry. 

At  last  the  sun  is  setting,  just  a  crimson  ball  of  fire, 

And  a  coolness  all  the  atmosphere  pervades; 

The  stalwart  feeder's  dusty  arms  at  last  begin  to 

tire, 
And  the  last  sheaf  passes  downward  through   the 

blades. 

Now  the  whistle's  long  drawn  wailing  is  a  song  of 
seraphim, 

And  the  stars  light  up    in    heaven's    purple 

deep; 

And  the  smoking  and  the  joking,  how  it  rests  the 
weary  limb 

Ere  bedtime  ushers  in  the  perfect  sleep. 
134 


IV. 

The  day  is  over, 

The  world  is  fed. 

And  the  farmer  sleeps 
On  his  feather  bed. 


The  Farmer 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 


The  farmer  is  a  man  of  wit, 
There's  a  simply  no  denying  itl 
He  leads  a  life  of  pampered  ease, 
And  is  as  happy  as  you  please. 

At  9  o'clock  he's  ready  for 
His  morning  rolls  and  cafe  noir; 
And  when  the  gourmet  thus  is  fed, 
His  valet  helps  him  out  of  bed. 
From  10  to  i  he  reads  the  news, 
The  market  tips  and  trade  reviews; 
To  corn  and  wheat  his  heed  he  gives, 
For  'tis  by  these  the  farmer  lives. 

135 


So  having  figured  for  the  day 
Which  way  the  markets  he  will  play, 
His  batch  of  daily  bread  is  made, 
By  dealing  on  the  Board  of  Trade. 
His  daily  labor  being  through, 
The  farmer  takes  his  lunch  at  2 ; 
Then  donning  riding-garb,  he'll  call 
His  favorite  motor  from  the  stall. 

He  rides  about   to  view  his   farm, 
And  feel  the  restful  country's  charm. 
His  wife,  with  paints  and  sketching  pad, 
And  all  the  trinkets  of  her  fad, 
Her  easel  sets  beneath  the  tree, 
And  paints  the  view  from  2  to  3 ; 
At  6  o'clock  they  dine  in  state — 
The  farming  life  is  simply  great! 

The  products  of  the  earth  and  air 
Are  on  the  table  groaning  there. 
Sweet  milk  is  always  at  their  hand, 
Bought  by  the  case  all  neatly  canned. 
The   trolley   line   that   rattles   down, 
It  brings  them  butter  fresh  from  town, 
And  eggs  and  luscious  chickens  fries, 
The  best  the  city's  mart  supplies ; 

136 


Green  truck  and  fruit  all  crisp  and  nice, 

Just  taken  from  cold  storage  ice; 

And  juicy,  luscious  ham,  O  my! 

The  best  the  packers  can  supply. 

No  wonder  life  upon  the  farm 

Has  always  held  so  rare  a  charm! 

The  cry  of  "Rube!"  which  town  folks  shout, 

Is  only  envy,  inside  out! 


On  the  Farm 

BY  ELLEN  P.  ALLERTON. 


How  sweet  to  lean  on  Nature's  arm, 

And  jog  through  life  upon  the  farm; 

Merchants  and  brokers  spread  a  dash 

A  little  while,  then  go  to  smash; 

But  we  can  keep  from  day  to  day, 

The  even  tenor  of  our  way. 

(There  go  those  horses!  Quick,    John,    catch 

'em.) 
They'll  break  their  necks!  You  didn't  hitch 

'cm.) 


137 


How  sweet  and  shrill  the  plow-boy's  song, 

As  merrily  he  jogs  along; 

The  playful  breeze  about  him  whirls, 

And  tosses  wide  his  yellow  curls. 

His  hands  are  brown,  his  checks  are  red — 

An  everblooming  flower-bed. 

Unspoiled  by  crowds,  unvexed  by  care — 

(Goodness!  do  hear  the  urchin  swear!) 

How  soft  the  summer  showers  fall, 
On  field  and  garden,  cheering  all ; 
How  bright  in  woods  the  diamond  sheen, 
Of  rain-drops  strung  on  threads  of  green — 
Each  oak  a  king  with  jewel  crown. 
(The  wind  has  blown  the  haystack  down! 
I  knew  'twould  hail,  it  got  so  warm. 
That  fence  is  flat.     My!  what  a  storm!) 

How  soft  the  hazy  summer  night! 
On   dewy  grass  the   moon's   pale   light 
Rests  dreamily.     It  falls  in  town 
On  smoky  roofs  and  pavements  brown. 
How  tenderly  when  night  is  gone, 
Breaks  o'er  the  fields  the  summer  dawn! 
How  sweet  and  pure  the  scented  morn. 
(Get  up!  Old  Molly's  in  the  corn!) 

138 


Far  from  the  city's  dust  and  broil, 
We  women  sing  at  household  toil, 
Nor  scorn  to  work  with  hardened  hands; 
We   laugh   at   fashion's   bars   and    bands, 
And  on  our  cheeks  wear  nature's  rose. 
(That  calf  is  nibbling  at  my  clothes! 
Off  she  goes  at  double  shuffle, 
Chewing  down  my  finest  ruffle!) 

We  workers  in  our  loom  of  life, 
Far  from  the  city's  din  and  strife, 
Weave  many  a  soft,  poetic  rose, 
With  patient  hand  through  warp  of  prose ; 
We  love  our  labor  more  and  more. 
(John!  here!  the  pigs  are  at  the  door! 
They've  burst  the  stye  and  scaled  the  wall- 
There  goes  my  kettle,  soap  and  all!) 


A  Regular  Dry  Spell 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON, 


Said  Uncle  Bye  to  Judson  Nye, 
"Well,  old  top,  it's  sure  some  dry, 
Oats  aren't  more  than  a  half  inch  high. 
When  you  goin'  a  get  your  corn  laid  by?" 

139 


"Talk  about  dry,"  said  neightbor  Nye, 
"Why,  I've  scorched  my  eye  like  an  oyster  fry 
Peeling  that  orb  at  the  red  hot  sky 
Watching  for  clouds,  but  they  don't  drift  by. 
Here  it  is  close  to  the  Fo't  July. 
Can  you  lay  corn  by  when  it  ain't  knee  high?" 

"Corn's  awful  backward  sure  this  year; 
Don't  look  like  it  could  make  an  ear. 
The  Lord,  He's  watching  each  green  young 

spear, 
And  my  corn's  just  as  good  as  the  rest  'round 

here, 

It's  clean  as  the  floor  of  a  barn,  darn  near. 
The  growth  is  slow,  I  admit  that's  so; 
But  in  nary  a  row  does  the  least  weed  show, 
It's  so  plum  darn  dry  that  the  weeds  can't 
grow !" 

Uncle  Bye  said,  "If  you're  asking  me 

I  swan  I  swear  that  I  never  did  see 

Such  a  long  dry  spell.     And  so  hot,  too.  Gee ! 

But  'twas  just  like  this  in  '93. 

It  cut  off  raining  away  in  May, 

Had  to  use  scissors  to  cut  the  hay. 

Some  of  it,  short  as  a  goslin's  fuzz, 

We  lathered  and  shaved  like  a  barber  does; 

140 


Corn  rolled  up  like  a  cigarette; 
A  chap  could  have  smoked  the  stuff,  I  bet. 
I  tell  you  what,  if  you  b'lieve  my  words, 
Little  chicks  grew  up  to  full-sized  birds, 
Summer  born  calves,  they  were  five  feet  tall, 
And  never  yet  seen  one  rain  drop  fall! 
Hay  was  twenty-five  dollars  a  ton, 
Cash  couldn't  get  it,  'cause  there  wasn't  none. 
Yet  here  is  the  fact  that  seems  so  queer, 
That  was  a  scandalous  big  peach  year; 
They  grew  everywhere  that  the  eye  could  see, 
On  any  bush  claiming  to  be  a  tree; 
You  could  drive  right  along  beside  the  road 
And  shake  them  off  by  the  wagon  load. 
Though  it's  dry  and  hot,  I  tell  you  what; 
Peaches  can  stand  a  terrible  lot. 
If  it  rains  this  year,  some  time  'fore  fall, 
There'll  be  peaches  to  throw  at  the  birds, 
that's  all." 


Butchering  Day 

BY  C.  L.  EDSON. 

High  through  the  sky  see  the  homing  birds  sailing- 
It's  butchering  time. 
Frost  on  the   fences;  on  picket  and  paling — 

141 


Hear  the  weird  winter  wind  whining  and  wailing, 
The  warmth  and  the  daylight  are  flitting  and  failing 
It's  hog  killing  time. 

The  season  of  feasting  has  come  with  the  fall, 

And  the  digging  of  yams. 
The  corn-fattened  oxen  are  sleek  in  the  stall 

And  the  hogs  are  all  hams 
The  hands  of  the  harvest  have  come  from  their 

toiling, 

They've  set  the  black  pot  full  of  water  a-boiling, 
There's  a  jangle  of  knives  and  the  whetstone  they're 

oiling — 

It's  butchering  time. 

The  women    have    laid    down  their    sewin*    and 

stitchin', 

There's  a  stir  in  the  place — 
And  their  laughter  and  chatter  reflects  from  the 

kitchen 

The  joy  of  the  chase. 

For  old  primal  passions  are  stirring  again, 
And  a  wave  of  the  cave  dweller  days  on  their  ken 
Lures  them  keen  on  the  blood  sprinkled  trail  of  the 

men — 
At  butchering  time. 


142 


The  porker  is  squealing  the  pangs  of  his  fear, 

For  the  chase  has  grown  hot. 
His  cry  is  like  music  to  every  ear, 
It's  a  flash  of  the  cave  man  pursuing  the  deer, 
It's  the  lusty  and  blood-shedding  time  of  the  year, 
And  the  moment  of  rapture  and  capture  is  here — 

There's  the  sound  of  a  shot. 

The  prey  has  gone  down  and  the  men  with  a  shout 
Plunge  a  knife  in  its  heart  and  the  life  gurgles  out, 

In  the  old  feeding  lot. 

And  the  women  come  out  with  a  smile  on  each  face 

To  their  part  in  the  task — 

As  our  foremothers  followed  the  men  to  the  chase, 
In  an  age  that  is  hid  in  the  hazes  of  space 

And  Time's  motionless  mask. 
But  we  know  that  the  past  surges  back  in  our  veins, 

At  the  terrified  cry, 
And  the  fever  of  conquest  lights  up  in  our  brains, 

And  the  blood-lust  in  eye; 
And  the  best  day  of  all,  in  the  lap  of  the  fall, 

With  its  multifold  charm. 
Is  the  thick  of  the  fray  upon  butchering-day — 

On  the  farm. 


143 


My  People 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

I  have  dwelt  in  a  land  of  strangers  where  even  the 

sun  is  cold 
And  the  hills  are  damp  with  the  sweat  of  age  and 

rotten  with  its  mould; 
The  hemlocks  stretch  their  shuddering  arms  where 

ancient  lichens  cling 
And  winter  lingers  the  summer  through  in  the  lap 

of  the  fainting  spring. 
The  sad  skies  weep  through  the  sombre  gloom  that 

gathers  overhead 
And  the  shadows  close  like  a  charnel-house  when  the 

pallid  day  is  dead; 
But   human  creatures  live   and   love  and  crumble 

with  the  rains 
Who  never  knew  the   madness  of   the   sunshine   in 

their  veins. 

They  never  felt  the  touches  of  the  south-wind  on 

their  faces 
When  down  she  sweeps  upon  them  from  the  azured 

open  spaces; 
They  never  saw  the  wild  rose  in  a  tangle  at  their 

feet, 

144 


The  bumble-bee  that  filches  all  her  shyly  treasured 

sweet ; 
For  them  no  tawny  sunflowers  with  their  crowns 

of  beaten  gold 
Have  nodded  through  the  summer  sun  like  Spanish 

kings  of  old; 
They  never  stumbled  in  the  grass  upon  the  brown 

quail's  brood 
And    heard    their    frightened  cheeping    break    the 

prairie  solitude. 

But  what  of  ye,  my  people,  in  the  furrows  where 

you  stand 
With  your  eyes  of  patient  watching  and  the  cheeks 

that  June  has  tanned — 

Ye  have  turned  with  adoration  toward  the  home 
land  of  your  youth 
And  have  worshipped  in  a  childish  faith  the  empty 

husks  of  Truth; 
With  the  confidence  of  children  ye  have  followed 

from  afar 
And  Eastward  turned  your  yearnings  as  the  Wise 

Men  to  the  Star; 
Ye  do  not  know  as  I  know  all  the  empty,  faithless 

shrines 
And  the  altars  where  the  sodden  priests  are  drunk 

with  wanton  wines. 

145 


Ye  do  not  know  as  I  know  all  the  glory  of  the 
West, 

(Or  is  it  that  ye  know  it  well  and  leave  it  unex 
pressed?) 

I  am  one  with  ye,  my  people,  of  the  rough,  work- 
hardened  hands, 

Have  trod  the  furrows  ye  have  trod  across  the  level 
lands, 

Have  felt  the  hot  wind's  fevered  breath  when  cloud 
on  cloud  was  arched 

While  all  the  earth  cried  out  for  rain  and  every 
throat  was  parched. 

In  reverence  I  bow  me  down  before  those  patient 
eyes 

That  see  across  the  shriveled  corn  a  rainbow  in  the 
skies. 

Is  it  wonder  then,  my  people,  that  we  storm  the 

heights  of  God, 
For  they  know  Him  best  who  build  for   Him  an 

altar  from  the  sod: 
Is  it  wonder  that  our  dreamers  who  have  died  the 

death  of  shame, 
As  John  Brown  on  the  gallows-tree,  have  set  the 

world  aflame? 


146 


We  are  young,  but  through  our  pulses  leaps  a  flood 
from  heroes'  veins, 

Men  who  struck  in  flaming  anger  at  the  South 
land's  slaving  chains; 

Then  to  homely  ploughshares  forging  every  bat 
tle-gleaming  blade, 

They  have  wrestled  in  the  desert  with  an  Angel 
undismayed. 

Day  by  day  the  dread  endeavor,  muscles  tense  and 

faces  grim, 
With  the  prairie  like  a  caldron  banded  by  a  brazen 

rim: 
Now  the  corn  in  rich  abundance  heals  the  ancient 

scars  of  pain, 
And  the  wheat-field's  golden  deluge  overflows  the 

fertile  plain. 
'Twas  for  love  of  us,  my  people,  you  and  me,  their 

children  still, 

Though  their  toil-worn  bodies  slumber  on  the  lit 
tle,  lonely  hill. 
Lo,  the  Eastern  shrines  are  pallid,  cursed  as  Cain 

their  sacrifice, 
And  we  turn  our  faces  Westward  where  our  own 

white  altars  rise. 


147 


'Then,  Whate'er  the 
Weather" 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 


Howdy,  old  man,  how's  K.  U.?     Lord,  what  a  grip 

you  have  got. 
Somehow  I  thought  it  was  you,  and  I  made  for 

you  rapid  and  hot, 
There  was  something  familiar  about  you,  a  curve 

of  the  shoulder  and  back, 
A  stride  that  I  hadn't  forgotten  from  the  days  at 

McCook  on  the  track; 
And  so  as  I  stood  in  the  subway  I  let  the  express 

whistle  by, 
And  said  to  myself,  "It's  Bill  Blazes,  I'll  walk  up 

and  swat  the  old  guy/' 
And  now  that  I've  got  you,  Bill  Blazes,  I'll  keep 

you  and  jaw  you  for  fair; 
A  warm  little  dinner  at  Shanley's,  we'll  walk  it 

to-night  through  Times  Square. 
And  so,  just  you  loosen  and  tell  me  as  much  as  you 

care  to  relate 
Of  your  intimate  personal  doings,  I'll  bet  they  are 

rich,  you  old  skate. 


148 


You've  been  off  in  Brazil  building  railroads, — 

that's  sort  of    a  jump 
From  the  classical  halls  where   we   used   to  cavort 

and  the  rest  of  the  mossy  old  dump. 
Malaria,  skeeters,  and  niggers,  and  crocodiles  ready 

to  chaw ; 
I'll  bet  the  old  Amazon's  bigger,  but  give  me  a 

ride  on  the  Kaw. 
I'll  never  forget  that  May  evening  we  rowed  up 

to  Cameron's  bluff, 
And  the  way  that  the  girls  got  excited  when  the 

wind  came  up  sudden  and  rough, 
Or  the  cussing  you  gave  to  me  later,  with  both  of 

us  sopped  to  the  skin, 
Because  I  forgot  to  keep  rowing  while  holding  the 

young  ladies  in. 
It's  only  the  way  that  things  go,  Bill,  and  I  guess  we 

were  both  of  us  slow; 

They're  married,  I  reckon,  by  this  time,  and  teach 
ing  their  daughters  to  row. 

And  do  you  remember,  Bill  Blazes — don't  mind  my 

lord  Bobs  at  the  door, 
He  looks  mighty  glum  but  he's  harmless,  I've  been 

here  at  Shanley's  before — 
The  time  that  you  strung  me  so  smoothly  with  one 

of  your  sophomore  jokes 

149 


Till  I  put  on  my  war-paint  and  feathers  before  I 
got  onto  the  hoax? 

Or  the  garment  I  found  in  the  attic  and  sent  to 
the  good  Mrs.  Chase 

Demurely  tucked  in  with  your  laundry,  all  ribbons, 
Bill,  ruffles  and  lace? 

You  know  what  a  story  next  morning  she  told  to 
the  good  Mrs.  Brown 

And  how  that  young  reprobate  Blazes  was  account 
ed  the  rake  of  the  town. 

But  it  wasn't  all  fiddles  and  dancing, — (yes  waiter 

a  table  for  two, 
And  something  right  warm  for  a  starter,  I  think 

a  Martini  will  do.) 
There  were  nights  when  the  gas  was  a-sputter  till 

we  pulled  down  the  windows  at  four 
And  set  the  alarm  clook  for  seven,  too  jaded,.  Bill, 

even  to  snore ; 
There  were  days  when   I   waited  on  tables,  and 

chewed  all  the  skin  off  my  thumbs 
Because  some  thin  faculty  spinster  came  late  as  I 

brushed  off  the  crumbs; 
There  were  times,  Bill,  I  am  sorry  to  own  it,  when 

it  seemed  all  the  cards  in  the  pack 
Had  been  juggled  to  deuces  and  three-spots  and  I 

didn't  have  grit  to  "come  back" 
150 


There  are  moments  that  make  us  or  break  us,  you 

knew  when  I  had  'em,  old  top, 
And  once  when  I  nearly  went  under,  'twas  the  look 

in  your  eyes  made  me  stop. 
But  where  in  the (come  here,  waiter,  my  order 

was  Camembert  cheese, 
And  bring  us  another  Chianti.) — they're  harder  to 

lasso  than  fleas. 

And  so  you  have  bought  a  plantation  and  stocked 

it  with  gringos  and  guns, 
As  big  as  the  state  of  New  Jersey,  and  you  export 

crude  rubber  by  tons, 
With  niggers  to  swing  you  in  hammocks,  and  wave 

you  to  sleep  with  their  fans, 

And  niggers  to  fetch  you  and  carry,  all  calicos,  yel 
lows,  and  tans; 
Can  you  find  any  blacker  and  truer  than  old  Aunt 

Louisa,  the  cook, 
Who  swore  that  the  medices  ate  corpses,  and  said 

her  Lucindy  was  took? 
She  died  in  the  harness  last  April,   I'm  sorry   I 

couldn't  trot  back 
And  buy  her  a  big  bunch  of  roses  and  follow  the 

hearse  in  a  hack. 


151 


They  say  that  Carruth  is  at  Stanford,  but  Zeus  is 
still  chipper  and  spry, 

A  sort  of  immortal  Tithonus — Gee,  I  wish  I  could 
see  the  old  guy. 

And  Boynton  is  busy  as  ever,  Uncle  Jimmy  still 
shouts  for  the  boys, 

And  Naismith,  God  bless  the  old  beggar,  accumu 
lates  avoirdupois. 

Miss  Watson  still  frightens  the  Freshmen,  'Miss 
Gardner's  the  queen  of  the  hill, 

Miss  Lynn  with  her  quaint  prairie  sunshine  has 
captured  the  Atlantic's  good-will. 

There's  host  of  new  faces  among  them,  and  some 
times  the  old  ones  forget; 

But,  Bill,  if  old  Hoppy  should  spy  us,  he'd  know  us 
in  Hades,  you  bet, 

A  kinder,  and  shrewder,  and  truer — (Here,  waiter, 
just  hand  me  the  bill, 

And  tinkle  this  chip  in  your  pocket,  and  clear  off 
the  cloth  if  you  will.) 

As  I  started  to  say,  this  plantation — you  want  to 

know  something  of  me? 
I  can't  say  there's  much  worth  the  telling,  I  pound 

for  a  living  you  see; 
It's  all  in  the  trick  of  the  fingers,  but  some  in  an 

eye  for  the  facts, 

152 


And  hustle  each  hour  for  excitement,  or  else  you 

are  shaved  with  an  axe. 
I  suppose  you  don't  mind  it,  you  rascal,  you're  rich 

as  a  king  and  alone, 
And  nothing  to  do  but  mark  rubber  and  ride  round 

the  acres  you  own; 
Just  wait  till  you've  got  to  pay  taxes,  and  children 

come  on  bye  and  bye — 
What  in  thunder!     You  don't  say  you're  married? 

Jehosaphat,  Bill,  so  am  I. 


May  on  Oread 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

"Oh,  to  be  in  England 

Now  that  April's  there." 
So  plained  the  Poet  from  a  land  of  fire 
Forgetful  of  the  gaudy  melon-bloom, 
Heart-hungry  for  his  English  daffodils 
And  for  the  elm-tree's  tiny  crinkled  green. 
— He  did  not  know  the  land  of  my  desire, 
The  wild  bees  on  the  lilac's  purple  plume, 
The  sun-transfigured  glory  of  the  hills, 
And  May  on  Oread,  glad  and  sweet  and  clean. 

153 


The  University  of  Kansas 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

They  have  throned  her  upon  a  hill-top,  mother  and 
queen  in  one, 

Bride  of  the  skies  at  mid-night,  sister  of  the  sun, 

Crowned  with  the  glory  of  wisdom,  garlanded  with 
light, 

With  the  stars  in  her  shadowy  tresses  when  she 
sleeps  in  the  arms  of  night, 

With  the  stars  in  her  shadowy  tresses,  and  a  mil 
lion  lamps  that  gem 

The  undulant  lines  of  her  body  to  the  fringe  of 
her  garment-hem. 

To  her  feet  from  the  far-flung  prairie  her  loving 
subjects  press, 

Sprung  from  the  sun-browned  heroes  who  peopled 
a  wilderness, 

Lads  on  whose  hearts  are  graven  epics  of  toil  un 
sung. 

Bolder  than  olden  story  boasted  in  golden  tongue, — 

Bolder  than  knights  of  Arthur,  braver  than  Charl 
emagne, 

The  patient  unchronicled  warriors  whose  plow 
share  conquered  the  plain. 

154 


Beside  them  kneel  their  sisters,  womanly,  strong 

and  true, 
Their  hearts  aflame  with  a  courage  such  as  their 

mothers  knew 
When  they  watched  the  hot  winds  shrivel  the  corn 

in  the  swelling  ear 
Yet  smiled  at  the  men  who  faltered,  when  every 

smile  hid  a  tear, 
Still  smiled  when  the  tiny  invader  set  teeth  to  the 

ripening  wheat, 
And  the  face  of  the  sun  was  darkened,  and  ruin 

seemed  complete. 

They  have  throned  her  upon  a  hill-top  and  her  scep 
tre  sways  afar ; 

The  ends  of  the  earth  acknowledge  her  wherever 
her  children  are. 

Never  in  pride  of  her  glory  may  those  she  has  nour 
ished  forget 

That  not  on  the  purple  dais  is  her  throne  of  do 
minion  set, 

Not  on  the  purple  dais, — May  the  sons  of  those 
pioneers, 

Stand  strong  by  their  father's  struggle  and  clean  by 
their  mother's  tears. 

155 


Kansas,  Mother  of  Us  All 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

Kansas,  Mother  of  us  all, 
Bosomed-deep,  imperial, 
Queen  of  states  with  dusty  feet 
Glowing  through  the  ripening  wheat, 
Crowned  with  cloud,  and  amply  free 
In  large  motioned  majesty, 
Sky  and  prairie,  circling  plain, 
Take  us  to  thy  breast  again. 

We,  thy  sons,  have  strengthened  thews, 
Fed  on  manna  of  thy  dews, 
And  have  laid  our  heads  to  rest 
On  thy  slowly  heaving  breast, 
Felt  the  vast  tide  of  thy  heart 
All  its  silent  peace  impart, 
Mother,  we,  the  kernelled  grain, 
In  thy  bosom  sink  again. 

We,  thy  daughters,  lithe  and  tall, 
Follow  when  our  brothers  call, 
Eyes  that  see  the  right  to  do, 
Hand  to  hold  the  rudder  true, 
Lip  to  set  the  seal  of  love 
On  thy  sons  who  worthy  prove, 
Give  us  strength  to  bear  thy  pain, 
Folded  to  thy  side  again. 
156 


Over  all  the  stubbled  plain 
Stretch  low  tents  of  yellow  grain, 
Rakish  bumble-bees  have  wheeled 
Looting  the  alfalfa  field, 
And  long  lances  of  the  corn 
Storm  the  ramparts  of  the  morn, 
Lo,  the  sword  that  knows  no  stain 
In  a  plough-share  melts  again. 

Kansas,  Mother,  what  shall  be 
Guerdon  fitting  unto  thee, 
Who  have  bent  and  lifted  up 
To  our  lips  a  brimming  cup? 
We,  thy  children,  dedicate 
All  our  lives  to  make  thee  great, 
Strength  and  sinew,  heart  and  brain- 
Lull  at  night  to  sleep  again! 


Harry  Kemp 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

Amherst,  Mass.,  Feb  25,  1914. 
Dear  Kansas: 

I   don't  doubt  you  think  it's  rather  intimate 
For  me  to  write  a  letter  to  so  dignified  a  State 
And  send  the  second  shipment  of  Epistles  from  the 
East 

157 


To  round  about  two  million  Jayhawks  at  the  very 
least. 

For  I  have  grown  quite  cocky  since  I  left  for  for 
eign  climes 

And  have  sent  from  Massachusetts  quite  a  can 
nonade  of  rhymes, 

Till  I  reckon  you  grow  weary  of  my  oft-repeated 
tunes 

All  about  the  plains  of  Kansas  and  the  blaze  of 
August  noons. 

There's  no  poetry  in  August  when  the  sweat  runs 

down  your  back, 
And  you  feel  the  hot  winds  sizzle  till  they  burn 

your  whiskers  black, 
When  it  seems  as  if  your  pitchfork  had  been  dipped 

in  melted  lead 
And  the  threshing-engine  chuckles  to  the  red  sun 

overhead, 
And  you  flounder  in  the  barges  choked  with  flying 

chaff  and  dirt 
While  the  wheat-beards  grow  familiar  through  your 

salt  and  soppy  shirt. 
Then  you'd  like  to  kill  the  poet  who  slops  over  at 

the  mouth 
When  the  gentle  August  zephyrs  come  hell-blazing 

from  the  south ; 

158 


You  would  like  to  set  him  pumping  when  the  wind 
mill  wheel  is  dead 

And  you  have  to  furnish  water  for  your  thirsty 
hundred-head  ; 

When  you  sluice  your  heaving  porkers  with  cold 
water  all  day  long 

You  could  massacre  the  minstrel  who  would  set  the 
thing  in  song. 

And    the    sunflower!     There's    another    little     rift 

within  the  lute, 
All  about  her  golden  bonnet  and  her  saucy  gypsy 

suit. 
She's  no  queen  in  Lincoln  kirtle,  delicate  and  shyly 

made, 

But  a  pert  and  flippant  baggage,  rank  and  shame 
less,  watch  the  jade, 
Shouldering    aside    the    corn-stalk's    exquisite    and 

slender  grace, 
See  the  brazen  hoyden  flaunting  all  her  colors  in  her 

face, 
Or  when  Winter  strips  her  fleshless,  see  her  gaunt 

and  twisted,  stand 
Scattering  a  witch's  harvest  over  all  the  blasted 

land. 


159 


Yes,  I  know  that  chinch-bugs  clamber  up  the  spiky 
heads  of  wheat 

And  I  know  they  leave  destruction  where  they  set 
their  musty  feet ; 

I  have  seen  the  corn-rows  wither  in  one  sunny  sum 
mer  day 

When  those  gray  invading  squadons  set  their  col 
umns  under  way: 

First,  the  wheat  forgets  to  kernel,  then  the  dumb 
and  helpless  corn, 

Limply  yielding  without  quarter  where  those  tiny 
teeth  have  shorn. 

And  there  isn't  much  of  beauty  in  a  broken-heart 
ed  field 

Where  you  scarce  can  find  a  nubbin  that  the  chinch- 
bugs  haven't  peeled. 

But  I  wonder  if  the  beauty  some  Byronic  poet  sings 
Is  a  real  as  the  beauty  underlying  common  things, 
And  I  wonder  if  in  Kansas  where  we  wrestle  with 

distress 

There  is  not  a  subtler  beauty  underneath  the  ugli 
ness? 

Epic  fields  have  brandished  armor  to  the  challenge 
of  the  sun 

160 


And  the  feet  of  charging  squadrons  over  leaning 

wheat-fields  run; 
Mighty  ships  of  portly  burden  lumber  through  the 

summer  sky 
And  the  thunder  of  armadas  speaks  in  heaven's 

artillery ; 

Cloudy  summits  crowned  with  glory  lift  their  sacr 
ed  Alpine  snows 
To  the  kiss  the  sun  has  flung  them  when  he  turned 

to  his  repose; 
Then  the  stars  shine  through  the  splendor  that  has 

lingered  in  the  west 
And  you  hear  a  drowsy  night-bird  twitter  from  a 

hidden  nest. 

There  you  have  it !  Well,  I  wonder,  is  it  worth  my 
while  to  try 

Just  to  put  it  down  on  paper  when  you  have  as 
keen  an  eye, 

And  I  know  that  back  in  Kansas  men  are  living 
what  I  write 

And  they  see  the  things  I  say  here,  only  with  a 
clearer  sight? 

Yet,  there  was  a  man  who  showed  you  all  of  Kan 
sas'  loveliness, 

And  he  came  among  you  barefoot  in  a  strange,  un 
lovely  dress, 

161 


Such  a  wild  and  eerie  creature  touched  with  wonder 

in  the  eyes 
Like  a  John  the  Baptist,  maybe,  every  word  a  fresh 

surprise. 
And  you  couldn't  understand  him,  for  he  shocked 

you — didn't  he? 
And   he   sometimes  spoke   in   cuss-words   and   not 

always  tactfully. 
Just  a  wanderer  from  heaven  who  had  plumbed  the 

depths  of  hell, 
One  who  looked  upon  such  visions  as  he  would  not 

dare  to  tell, 
But  you  felt  when    you  were    with    him    he    had 

winced  beneath  the  brand, — 
Then  you  laughed  and  called  "eccentric"  what  you 

couldn't  understand. 
Harry  Kemp,  the  hobo  poet,  half  a  marvel,  half 

a  joke 
Till  you  glimpsed  the  red  volcano  underneath  the 

veiling  smoke. 
And  his  flail  of  woods  fell  stinging  on  a  Pharisaic 

back, 

For  he  found  the  tender  places  with  a  most  un 
canny  knack. 


162 


Was  that  why  when  he  had  left  you  for  his  sum 
mer  Paradise 
Where  he  tasted  bitter  apples  that  he  dreamed  so 

rare  a  prize, 
That  the  goodly  people  gathered  all  the  brimstone 

of  the  Lord 
And  with  holy  indignation  guarded  Eden  with  a 

sword  ? 
John  the  Baptist  has  a  mission  when  he  sticks  to 

curds  and  whey 
But  he'd  best  be  rather  careful  how  he  chums  with 

Salome, 
And  there's   nothing   folks   like   better  when   their 

hearts  are  black  within 
Than  to  ferret  out  a  neighbor  and  to  megaphone 

his  sin. 

I  don't  say  it's  noble  labor  to    eat    apples    by    the 

quart 
Of  the  kind  that  grow  in  Eden,  for  there  is  a 

better  sort, 
But  I'd  like  to    ask  the  people  who  have  had  such 

dirt  to  fling 

If  they  never  hankered  after  just  a  little  appling? 
I  have  walked  along  the  highway  long  enough  to 

know  that  men 


163 


Like  to  wriggle  through  the  hedge-rows  into  Edens 
now  and  then; 

Then  perhaps  some  braver  poacher  walks  in  boldly 
by  the  gate 

And  they  raise  a  holy  hubbub  o'er  the  fallen  celi 
bate. 

Harry  Kemp  is  not  an  angel,  never  sprouted  crown 
or  wing, 

But  there  is  a  second  party  when  it  comes  to  Eden- 
ing; 

And  I've  heard  of  Don  Quixotes  charging  to  a 
damsel's  aid, 

Ignorant  till  all  was  over  how  the  puppet  had  been 
played, 

And  I  think  a  little  tex-book  on  the  neurasthenic 
mind 

Would  explain  this  Ardent-Eden  in  a  manner  quite 
refined, 

I  have  kept  my  head-piece  bolted  since  the  whirl 
wind  hit  the  camp 

And  have  read  with  some  amusement  all  about  the 
"shameless  tramp". 

Every  little  cub-reporter  who  had  heard  him  tear 
his  hair 

Wrote  remunerative  "features"  emphasizing  "I  was 
there," 


164 


And  I've  heard  from  older  sages  plying  journal 
istic  trade 

All  about  "poor  fallen  Harry  and  the  blunder  he 
has  made"; 

Then  I  looked  at  Harry's  letters  written  in  his  rag 
ged  hand 

And  I  blessed  the  holy  elders  horrified  in  Kansas- 
land. 

Had  they  known  him  as  I  knew  him  since  that  mem 
orable  day 

When  he  drifted  into  Horace  where  we  read  of 
Soracte, 

And  he  scanned  the  rare  Alcaics  with  such  ten 
derness  and  grace 

That  we  half  forgot  the  havoc  that  was  written 
on  his  face? 

Later  in  the  day  I  saw  him  in  that  haven,  half- 
divine 

Where  Carruth,  the  friend  of  dreamers,  kept  his 
white  and  stainless  shrine, 

From  the  altar  of  his  hearth-stone  what  a  gracious 
warmth  he  shed 

To  the  lonely  and  the  homeless,  when  they  wander 
ed  wearied! 


165 


Harry  Kemp,  the  hobo  poet,  quoting  lines  from 
Aeschylus, 

Bringing  flaming  fire  from  heaven  like  a  new  Pro 
metheus, 

Teaching  country  boys  the  beauty  of  the  epic-rolling 
plain 

When  the  dusky  shadows  ripple  over  heavy-headed 
grain, 

Turning  ugliness  to  wonder,  finding  in  a  mead 
ow-lark 

All  the  lyric  curlew's  rapture  thrilling  through  the 
Irish  dark, — 

Sang  of  aeroplanes  and  reapers,  and  the  thresher's 
mighty  fan, 

Found  as  poems  in  the  heavens,  Sirius  and  Aldebran. 

Yes,  we  sometimes  caught  some  echoes,  Ware  and 

Whitman  and  Carruth, 
And  a  touch  of  Blake  and  Thompson,  Keats  and 

Shelley  in  their  youth, 
And  you  sometimes  felt  a  fancy,  like  a  lonely  elfin 

child, 
Creeping  in  with  minor  cadence  from  the  strains 

of  Oscar  Wilde; 
But  he  breathed  the  wind  of  Kansas  and  he  felt 

the  tingling  sun 


166 


And  he  showed  us  lowly  beauty  where  the  homely 

highways  run, 
All  the  hidden  springs  of  wonder  that  we  never 

dreamed  were  here, 
Till  he  came  to  point  them  to  us  with  the  star-dust 

in  his  hair. 
He  had  found  a  flaming  vision  'neath    the    sunny 

Kansas  sky 
And  he  woke  a  land  to  beauty  and  a  State  to  poetry. 

Only  just  this  spring  I  saw  him,  Eliot  Porter,  and 

John  Shea, 
And  we  had  our  lunch  together  in  a  little  French 

cafe; 
Then  he  left  us  to  go  marching  in  the  suffragette 

parade 

When  the  vast  throat  of  Manhattan  cheered  the  wo 
men's  last  crusade. 
Through  Times  Square  we  saw  him  dodge  it  past 

the  honking  limousines 
Till  he  reached  the  subway  entrance  by  a  stand  of 

magazines ; 
Then  he  lifted  hand  and  waved  us  through  the 

intervening  space, 
Harry  Kemp,  the  hatless  hobo,  with  the  sunlight 

on  his  face, 


167 


Harry  Kemp,  our  Don  Quixote,  who  has  sounded 

the  advance. 
And  set  against  the  mighty  mills  his  lyric-pointed 

lance. 


The  Prairie-Sleeper 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

I  have  so  many  friends.     God  sends  them  to  me 

As  freely  as  He  sends  the  sun  or  rain. 
The  very  winds  of  Heaven  seem  to  woo  me 

With  all  their  wild,  sweet  ecstacy  of  pain. 
The  silent  stars  of  Heaven  stoop  unto  me 

And  with  their  fellowship  my  strength  is  slain 
As  I  lie  out  beneath  the  skies  that  dew  me 

All  night  upon  the  wind-swept  Kansas  plain, 
Till  all  the  comradeship  of  earth  ebbs  through  me 

Like  surge  of  tide  upon  the  restless  main. 

A  thousand  voices  of  the  crickets  cry  me 

Quaint  serenades  that  are  unheard  by  day ; 

The  wind  comes  by  on  tip-toe,  seems  to  try  me, 
Touching  with  cooling  finger-tips  that  stray 


168 


Along  my  body  to  my  bosom  shyly, 

Then,  like  a  startled  maiden,  slips  away 

Brushing  my  flushed  cheeks  as  she  scampers  by  me 
With  musty  fragrance  from  a  heavy  spray 

Of  golden-rod  that  drowsily  nods  nigh  me, — 

Sweet  wind  that  loves  me  far  too  well  to  stay. 

Above,  the  stars  across  the  empty  spaces 

Fling  clustered  silver  diadems  of  light; 
Like  queen  who  on  her  lover's  forehead  places 

Her  coronal,  so  kings  me  now  the  Night, 
And  I  forget  my  hopes  and  my  disgraces 

In  my  new  wonder  at  such  vast  delight; 
Until,  from  deeps  beyond  star-deeps,  there  races 

Her  fire-haired  messenger  enrobed  in  white 
And  round  each  circling  sun  the  friendly  faces 

Of  God's  far  universe  burst  into  sight. 

Lord  of  the  Night  and  all  her  beauty's  splendor, 

Pillowed  upon  her  warm,  sweet-scented  breast, 
Prairie  and  starlight,  ecstacies  unkenned  or 

Dared  in  dreaming  while  as  yet  unguessed, 
Can  she  so  shake  a  form  so  boyish-slender 

With  quenchless  longings  for  the  unpossessed, 
How  lavish  would  be  Love,  the  reckless  spender 

Of  hoardings  minted  in  such  sweet  unrest? 
The  love  of  God  is  not  more  strong  and  tender 

Than  these  wind-kisses  on  my  eyelids  pressed. 
169 


Friend  with  the  night,   the  wind,  the  stars,  the 
prairie, 

I  lie  out-flung  on  her  deep-rooted  sod; 
The  crickets  chant  their  anthem,  and  the  very 

Loneliness  is  eloquent  of  God. 
The  wind  slips  by  me  like  a  frightened  fairy 

And  nestles  in  a  tuft  of  golden-rod; 
The  primroses  their  dew-filled  censers  carry 

Along  the  grass-aisles  where  they  drowse  and 

nod 
And  swing  them  ever  slower,  till  a  hairy 

Indignant  bee-priest  rattles  a  milk-weed  pod. 

I  know  that  in  the  crowding  world  behind  me 

Where'er  I  turn  I  touch  a  friendly  hand, 
Frank  eyes,  and  strong,  clean  faces  are  inclined  me 

And  I  behold  their  smile  and  understand. 
But  now,  tonight,  no  phantom  fetters  bind  me, 

No  unbeliefs  the  faithless  world  has  planned; 
If  men  would  love  me,  they  must  come  and  find  me, 

Strange  travelers  from  some  far  distant  strand, 
For  now,  tonight,  no  human  cinctures  blind  me, 

And  Love  lays  bare  His  mysteries  unscanned. 


170 


The  Gates  Ajar 

BY  ALRERT  BIGELOW  PAINE. 


I  have  seen  a  Kansas  sunset  like  a  vision  in  a  dream, 
When  a  halo  was  about  me  and  a  glory  on  the 

stream ; 

When  the  birds  had  ceased  their  music  and  the  sum 
mer  day  was  done, 
And  prismatic  exhalations  came  a-drifting,  from  the 

sun; 
And  those  gold  and  purple  vapors,    and    the    holy 

stillness  there, 
Lay  upon  the  peaceful  valley  like  a  silent  evening 

prayer. 
And  I've  gazed  upon  that  atmospheric  splendor  of 

the  West, 
Till  it  seemed  to  me  a  gateway  to  the  regions  of  the 

blest. 

I  have  seen  a  Kansas  sunrise  like  the  waking  of  a 

dream, 

When  every  dewy  blade  of  grass  caught  up  the  gold 
en  gleam; 

When  every  bird  renewed  the  song  he  sang  the  night 

before, 

And  all  the  silent,  slumbering  world  returned  to  life 

once  more; 
171 


When  every  burst  of  radiance  called  up  a  throng  of 

life, 
And  all  the  living,  waking  world  with  melody  was 

rife. 
And  as  that  flood  of  life  and  song  came  floating 

down  the  plain, 
It  seemed  to  me  those  golden    gates   were   opened 

wide  again. 
0 

The  Sensitive  Brier 

BY  AMANDA  T.  JONES. 

(A  procumbent  perennial,  American  genus 
Schrankia,  found  on  the  rolling  prairies  of  Kansas 
and  other  south-eastern  states.  Because  of  the  ex 
ceeding  loveliness  and  unsurpassable  fragrance  of  its 
flowers,  it  is  popularly  known  as  The  Sensitive 
Rose). 

I. 

When  sweetly  breathed  the  budded  rose 
In  new-made  majesty  and  grace, 
Did  not  the  Master  for  a  space 
A  holy  stillness  interpose, — 

Forbidding  any  wind  to  brush 
Her  clasping  petals?     .      .     Ere  they  stirred 
While  yet  her  whispered  name,  half-heard, 

Sank  silenced  in  that  heavenly  hush, 
Did  He  not  turn  to  fashion  thee, 

172 


O,  babe-like  flower!  and  smile  to  see, — 
Deep-musing  on  the  Christ  to  be  ? 

II. 

Pales  in  thy  woof  the  rainbow's  red; 

Her  gold  adorns  the  raveled  veils 

Where-through  thy  blessed  breath  exhales ; 
Her  lucid  dews  are  on  thee  shed. 

So  sweet !    so  sweet ! — The  beds  of  spice 
Whereon  our  fair,  first  mother  slept, 
No  daintier  drops  of  honey  kept 

To  feed  the  bees  of  Paradise. 
Lo,  where  thy  shrinking  leaves  retreat 
At  coming  of  the  sinner's  feet ! 
Yet  will  thy  soft  forgiving  greet. 

III. 

Ah,  if  the  Lowly  One  might  pass 
And  yonder  blowing  roses  all 
Their  fragrant  loveliness  let  fall 

To  cushion  smooth  the  thickening  grass, 
How  would  I  haste  thyself  to  choose 

From  all  the  pure !    and  lifting  high 

These  most  abundant  blossoms,  sigh: 

"Thou  who  canst  virtue  give  nor  lose, 
With  whom  the  burdened  ones  find  rest, — 
The  while  I  touch  thy  seamless  vest, 

Gaze  but  on  these  and  I  am  blest !" 
173 


The  Prairie  Wind 

BY  WILLARD  WATTLES. 

Dim  in  the  dawn  of  the  centuries,  born  of  the  Prai 
rie  and  Sun, 
Brother  of  tempest  and  sunshine,  swift  on  the 

sandals  of  air, 
Laughing  I  race  with  the  shadows  that  chase 

o'er  the  infinite  plain, 

Thrilling  with  passionate  pleasure  and  pain 
As  the  wind-blossoms  shatter  and  scatter  their  deli 
cate  petals  of  white 
On  the  grass  as  I  pass  with    a    near-imperceptible 

tread, 
With  a  rustle  as  slight  as  the  whisper  of  night 

To  the  tremulous  stars  overhead ; 
So,  pulsing  with  light,  aglow  with  the  rapture  of 

flight, 

Under  the  glorious  heavens  I  love 
Where  the  ponderous    thunder-heads    rumble 

above, 
I  leap  in  the  gladness  and  strength  of  a  life  without 

limit  of  length. 
And  laugh  as  I  run  on  my  way  to  the  sun. 


174 


Ah,  prairies  of  Kansas,  craving  the  vast,  far  reach 
of  the  sky, 

Astir  with  wind-longings,  aquiver,  afire  with  yearn 
ings  and  deathless  desire, 
Passionate-leaning  along  the  horizon  bar  in  the 

shimmering  heat, 
Where  the  lips  of  warm  lovers  meet  and 

press 

In  a  region  of  dreams,  so  it  seems,  with  an  infi 
nite  tenderness: 

Still  when  the  luminous  star  of  the  West  is  alight 
on  the  breast  of  the  night, 

Wilt  thou  greet  with  as  constant  caress,  with  the 
ardor  of  noon, 

Those  death-pallid  lips,  dimly  white  in  the  indistinct 
light  of  the  moon? 

Hearken,  ye  dreamers  that  dwell  in  the  cell  of  a 

ripening  milk-weed  pod, 
The  burly  thistle  is  white  as  snow,  and  the 

crimson  cactus-plant  aglow, 
While  the  glorious  golden-rod 
Shelters  the  lumbering  bumble-bee  as  the  murmur 
ous  breezes  drowsily 

Drone  him  slumberously  to  rest  in  the  musty  fra 
grance  of  her  breast — 


175 


Come  forth  on  fairy,  ephemeral  wings  to  the  golden 

earth  and  the  azure  deep, 
Upward    the   wild   wind-currents   sweep,   vir 
ginal,  entire, 

Sweet  with  a  prairie  purity,  to  the  purging  passion 
of  the  sun  and  perfected  desire. 

The  frail  wild  hyacinths  shudder  to  feel  my  sinewy 

finger-tips  circle  their  stems, 
The  haughtiest  brook-grasses  waver   and   reel  and 

loosen  their  dusty  pollen  gems, 
Rich  treasure  of  fragrant  prairie  kind  they  cast  in 

the  pouch  of  the  flying  wind ; 
The  gold  I  filch  from  the    sunflower    crown,    and 

bend  the  sturdiest  ragweed  down; 
I  tease  the  delicate  sensitive-rose  till  all  of  her  slen 
der  tendrils  close, 
And  the  exquisite  pink-veined  stamens  shrink  in  pain 

of  the  boisterous  wind  that  blows. 
The  purple  plume  of   the   buffalo-pea  trembles   in 

dreamy  ecstacy ; 
And  the  fragile  primrose,  creamy  white,  bathes  in 

the  lucent  floods  of  light; 
While  the  scarlet  mallow  spreads  her  cup  to  gather 

the  golden  globules  up ; 
And  the  star-grass  spangles  the  sod. 


176 


The  yellow  grain  in  the  waving  plain  a  molten  ocean 

rolls ; 
Cloud  billows  fleet  with  dusky  feet  over  the  golden 

heads  of  wheat ; 
Wind-ruffled  corn   blades   flap   and   sigh,   and   lift 

their  cool,  green  standards  high, 
Electric  to  the  sun  and  sky. 

Many  a  shy-hid  russet  bird  with  wild  wind-longings 

dumbly  stirred, 
From  his  lowly  nest  on  the  homely  ground,  startles 

the  silence  into  sound. 
Wee,  quavering  cricket  voices  shrill,  and  thrushes' 

songs  that  throb  until 
Sweet-aching  wonder  strikes  them  still, 
Mingle  and  float  and  fade  and  die  in  the  vast,  wide 

arches  of  the  sky; 
Hushed  reverence    of   solemn    prayer    hallows    the 

prairie  everywhere ; 
Cloud  altars  glow,  while  to  and  fro,  the  wild-rose 

censers  fragrant  blow. 

The  mottled  bull-snake  glides  between  low,  Gothic 
aisles  of  living  green, 

Light-flickering  shadows  fret  his  back  with  change 
ful  sheen  of  gold  and  black ; 

The  brooding  dove  on  her  eggs  of  white  thrills  with 
a  dumb  maternal  fright, 

And  closer  crouches,  lustrous-eyed,  in  the  merciful 
dusk  where  the  shadows  hide. 
177 


Slight,  fragile,  long-antennaed  things  with  gossamer 

and  emerald  wings, 
Querulous  teem  in  the  matted  grass  as  the  slender 

ant  processions  pass, 
Each  thrifty  toiler   swart   and    brown   beneath    his 

burden  of  thistle-down. 
In  dim  secluded  galleries  the  ravenous  spider  his 

shuttles  plies, 
With  swift  and  sure  precision  weaves  a  silver  web 

in  the  shining  leaves, 
Spinning  death  from  a  poison  heart. 

Afar,  apart, 
Lone  in  the  violet  vault  of  the  sky,  with  a  steady 

wing  and  a  watchful  eye, 
The  silent  buzzards  fly. 

The  saucy  brown  gopher's  prying  snout  noses  the 
tumble-weed  about ; 

The  stiff  little  prairie-dog  warily  watches  the  radi 
ant  summer  sky, 

Till  a  sudden  shadow,  swooping  fell,  arouses  the 
vigilant  sentinel ; 

At  the  warning  chipper  of  his  alarm  the  little  gray- 
townsmen  scurry  from  harm, 

And  the  angry  hawk,  with  his  swoop  in  vain,  mounts 
in  the  dusk  to  his  post  again. 

178 


Sof t-footedly  the  Twilight  steals    with    its    blessed 

benison  of  rest, 

Up  the  long  vistas  of  the  West; 
The  slow  sun  sinks  to  the  level  rim  of  the  prairie 

ocean,  cold  and  dim; 
The  earliest  moon  crescent,  thin  and  slim,  pale 

in  her  bridal  garments  white, 
Follows  after, — and  it  is  Night. 
Soft-shrouding  shadows  darken  all  the  prairie  in  a 

sombre  pall  ; 

Star-eddies  rise  where  the  star-dust  lies  in  the  wind 
ing  highway  of  the  skies ; 
Pale,  phosphorescent   fire-flies   glow;   and   plaintive 

murmurings  are  heard, 
Sleep-wrested  from  a  drowsy  bird. 
The  white  moth  fondles  the  yucca  bloom 
Wan  gleaming  through  the  ghostly  light  her  spectral 

wings  ; 
Weird  wailing  through  the  midnight  gloom,  with 

haunting  minor  quaverings 
The  coyote  cries  forbodingly  as  some  lone  phan 
tom  from  a  tomb. 

The  planets  swing  in  a  deathless  ring,  serene  and 

clear  ; 

Sure-piloted  the  meteors  steer  through  the  thin, 
translucent  atmosphere, 

179 


And  every  dusky  satellite  safe  voyages  the  sea 

of  Night. 
In  the  prairie-grasses  the  mother  dove  broods  on  her 

nest  with  a  constant  love, 
While  the  sensitive-rose    leaves    delicate    spread    a 

thicker  shadow  around  her  head ; 
Shrouding  Creation  from  pole  to  pole,  stretches  the 

infinite  Over-Soul, 
And  the  world-wind  yearns  unsatisfied,   from  the 

Thing  Possessed  to  the  Thing  Denied, — 
But  the  merciful,  sheltering  Wings  abide. 

Wind  of  the  Prairie,  blowing  free, 

Wind  of  the  Prairie,  blow  for  me, — 
With  shining  feet  o'er  the  golden  wheat, 
Where  the  green  corn  blades  in  the  summer  heat 
Whisper  and  sigh  as  you  rustle  by, 

Blow  with  impalpable  fragrancy 
The  little  white  cloud  from  the  infinite  sky, 

And  my  heart  all  clean  and  sweet. 

Wind  of  the  Spirit,  blowing  free, 
Wind  of  the  Spirit,  blow  for  me, — 
On  wings  afire  with  subtle  desire 
Lift  the  lily  soul  from  the  crumbling  mire, 
And  higher,  higher,  and  ever  higher  than  the  noisy 
mart  and  the  slender  spire, 

180 


Blow  through  unspeakable  azure  deeps,  through 
the  silver  lane  where  the  comet  leaps, 
By  the  molten  moon,  up  the  starry  steeps, 
Those  white  soul  blossoms  through  the  night, 
In  scarce-heard  music  out  of  sight. 


The  Stars  Above  Mt.  Oread 

BY  ESTHER  M.  CLARK 


We  walked  across  the  hill  one  night, 

One  summer  night, — Oh,  years  ago! 
And  watched  each  timid  valley  light 

Peer  through  the  darkness  down  below. 
When  suddenly  he  raised  his  head 

In  that  quick,  boyish  way  he  had: 
"There  are  no  stars  like  these,"  he  said, 

"That  shine  above  Mount  Oread!" 

I  watched  the  struggling  valley  lights 

Push  bravely  out  against  the  dark 
The  while  his  fancy's  quickened  flights 

Bridged  all  the  years  and  made  his  mark. 
Youth  and  ambition  know  no  bars, 

And  these — and  faith — were  all  he  had; 
So  his  hopes  rose  and  touched  the  stars 

That  night  upon  Mount  Oread. 

181 


In  after  years  sometimes  he  sent 

A  word  of  hail  across  the  way. 
But  how  those  drifting  years  were  spent, 

Or  what  they  brought,  he  did  not  say, 
Nor  could  I  guess.     Yet  once,  alone, 

He  wrote,  half  jestingly,  half  sad: 
"There  are  no  stars  like  those  that  shone 

That  night  above  Mount  Oread!" 

#  #  *•  # 

Tonight  I  watched  them  down  below, 

The  valley  lights,  now  bright,  now  dim, 
And  wondered  what,  of  weal  or  woe, 

The  fickle  years  had  brought  to  him 
Who  once,  when  all  his  world  was  young, 

Had  dreamed  his  dream  of  fame,  dear  lad ! 
And  dared  to  set  his  hopes  among 

The  stars  above  Mount  Oread. 


Requiem 

BY  EUGENE  F.  WARE. 


I  am  rambling  with  the  rivers, 
I  am  falling  with  the  rain, 

I  am  waving  in  the  woodland, 
I  am  growing  in  the  grain. 

I  am  marching  in  the  zephyr, 
I  am  rimpling  in  the  rill, 

I  am  blooming  on  the  prairie — 
But  I  live  in  Kansas  still. 

182 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 


5.  The  Call  of  Kansas Esther  M.  Clark 

9.  Kansas  Harry  Kemp 

10.  Morning  in  Kansas Walt  Mason 

11.  Three  States Eugene  F.  Ware 

11.  Kansas  and  London Harry  Kemp 

12.  Each  In  His  Own  Tongue 

William  Herbert  Carruth 

14.  Opportunity John  J.  Ingalls 

15.  Kansas Nicholas   Vachel   Lindsay 

18.  When  the  Sunflowers  Bloom 

Albert   Bigelow   Paine 

20.  It  Will  Be  A  Kansas  Year J.  B.  Edson 

21.  Joy  In  the  Corn  Belt C.  L.  Edson 

22.  Walls  of  Corn Ellen  P.  Allerton 

24.  Ah!  Sunflower William  Blake 

25.  Winds  of  Delphic  Kansas Kate  Stephens 

28.  Le  Marias  du  Cygne John  G.  Whittier 

31.  The  Prairie  Pioneers C.  L.  Edson 

34.  Chewink Amanda  T.  Jones 

35.  Spring  In  Kansas Kate  Stephens 

37.  The  Prairie  Schooner.... Charles  Moreau  Harger 

38.  Where  "A  Lovely  Time  Was  Had" 

William  Allen  White 

40.  Pawpaws   Ripe Sol  Miller 

44.  Kansas Willard  Wattles 

47.  Carrie  Nation Willard  Wattles 

48.  John  Brown Eugene  F.  Ware 

51.  John  Brown W.  H.  Simpson 

51.  A  Tribute  to  John  Brown J.  G.  Waters 

52.  John  Brown William  Herbert  Carruth 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 
(Continued) 


Page 

53.  In  Idol-Smashing  Land C.  L.  Edson 

58.  A  Wheat-Field  Fantasy Harry  Kemp 

59.  The  Promise  of  Bread C.  L.  Edson 

61.  A  Wilier  Crick  Incident-William  Allen  White 

63.  A  Border  Memory Florence  L.  Snow 

68.  The  Defense  of  Lawrence Richard  Realf 

70.  Funston James  J.  Montague 

72.  Ode  to  Kansas Walt  Mason 

73.  My  Sage-Brush  Girl C.  L.  Edson 

75.  Plowing  Corn  in  Kansas Willard  Wattles 

78.  Sunflowers  in  the  Corn Willard  Wattles 

82.  Cutting  the  Corn C.  L.  Edson 

84.  A  Ridge  of  Corn Hamlin  Garland 

86.  Farm  Machinery Walt  Mason 

88.  The  Land  That  God  Forgot Harry  Kemp 

90.  Before  the  Robin  Dares Rose  Morgan 

91.  Pine  Trees  in  Kansas Rose  Morgan 

92.  Bouncing-Bet Rose  Morgan 

93.  The  Thrush Amanda  T.  Jones 

95.  Sunflowers C.   L.   Edson 

97.  The  Little  Old  Sod  Shanty  on  the  Claim.... 

Anonymous 

101.  The  Song  of  the  Kansas  Imigrant 

John  G.  Whittier 

103.  Stay  West,  Young  Man Willard  Wattles 

105.  Manhood Willard  Wattles 

107.  A  Challenge  to   Youth Willard  Wattles 

110.  Kansas Harry  Kemp 

111.  An  Epic  for  Kansas Willard  Wattles 


TABLE  OF  CONTENTS 
(Continued) 


115.  April  on  Half  Moon  Mountain C.  L.  Edson 

116.  Out  of  the  Kansas  Dust 

George  T.  and  C.  L.  Edson 

118.  The  Old  Timer Walt  Mason 

119.  When  She  Was  Born  Upon  That  Kansas  Hill 

William  Herbert  Carruth 

120.  Tescott William  Herbert  Carruth 

121.  The  Real  Foreign  Invasion C.  L.  Edson 

127.  The  Graderratun'  of  Joe..William  AllenWhite 

129.  The  Red  Bird Amanda  T.  Jones 

130.  The   Maverick Willard  Wattles 

132.     Threshing  Time C.  L.  Edson 

135.     The  Farmer C.  L.  Edson 

137.     On  the  Farm Ellen  P.  Allerton 

139.    A  Regular  Dry  Spell C.  L.  EdsoB 

141.    Butchering  Day C.  L.  Edson 

144.    My  People Willard  Wattles 

148.     "Then,  Whate'er  the  Weather" 

Willard  Wattles 

153.  May  on  Oread Willard  Wattles 

154.  The  University  of  Kansas.. ..Willard  Wattles 

156.  Kansas,  Mother  of  Us  All Willard  Wattles 

157.  Harry  Kemp Willard  Wattles 

168.     The  Prairie-Sleeper Willard  Wattles 

171.  The  Gates  Ajar Albert  Bigelow  Paine 

172.  The  Sensitive  Briar Amanda  T.  Jones 

174.     The  Prairie  Wind Willard  Wattles 

181.  The  Stars  Above  Mt.  Oread.. ..Esther  M.  Clark 

182.  Requiem Eugene  F.  Ware 

183.  Ad  Vivos Kate  Stephens 


DEC  0  b  1985 


DATE  DUE 


GAYLORD 


000  569  404 


